80 MICROSCOPIC FUNGI. 



seeds of the Bistort family, are all liable^ more or 

 less, to the attacks of one or other of the residue 

 of the eighteen species of Ustilago already referred 

 to as indigenous to Britain. 



Although we do not profess to teach practical 

 men how to grow good corn, or how they shall get 

 rid of, or keep clear from, the many foes to which 

 their crops are exposed, yet a suggestion may be 

 offered, based upon the facts obtained in our 

 botanical researches, supported by the analogy of 

 allied circumstances. In this instance the extreme 

 minuteness and profusion of the spores would evi- 

 dently render all the corn liable to the attachment 

 of, perhaps only two or three, spores to the seed 

 coat. Some ears of corn in nearer proximity to- 

 the smutted ears may be covered with spores which 

 yet remain invisible to the naked eye, and when 

 these grains are mixed with others in the heap, the 

 chances are not much in favour of any handful not 

 becoming charged with spores. If the majority of 

 these were not redeemed from destruction by the 

 many changes, shiftings, rubbings, and scrubbings 

 to which the seed corn is liable between the time of 

 its reaping and the period of its sowing, we might 

 expect a very large crop of "smutted'^ corn^ 

 Under ordinary circumstances we can scarcely 

 imagine that the loss arising from infected ears- 

 would repay much special labour to prevent it, only 

 that to a large extent the precautions taken to 

 cleanse the seed corn from the spores of one fungus 



