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From this account, it is as certain as experiment 

 can make it, that a fmutty crop of wheat is not 

 the necedary refult of Towing feed from corn that is 

 fmutty ; nor that it owes its corruption to any vi- 

 cious principle or defc<5l in the feed. In this ex- 

 periment we fee the feed, rinfed or foaked in fimple 

 water, produced as clean and perfed grain as that 

 which was foaked in a ftrong folution of fait and 

 water ; and therefore were not in the lead tainted 

 by the fmutty grains in the fame ear, nor at all 

 affected by the caufe, whatever it was, that vitiated 

 them; or if they were, that the foaking and rinfmg 

 in fimple water was as effeftual to the prefervation 

 of the crop from fmut, as the ftrong pickle. But 

 it is a truth univerfally known from experience, 

 that in unfavourable years corn is generally fmutty, 

 notwithftanding brining, liming, and every precau- 

 tion hitherto ufed to prevent it. From all which it 

 clearly appears, that the general caufe of the fmut 

 does not exift in the feed, but is owing, if not al- 

 together, yet in a very great degree, to fome viti- 

 ating principle in the air, a conftant concomitant of 

 cold, wet, ftormy, tempeftuous fummers, which are 

 ever attended by fmutty crops. My reafon for 

 fuppofing the fmut may fometimes pofTibly be de- 

 rived from the feed will appear hereafter, 



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