MILDW ANT) B^AND. 47 



Farnham, or any other hop-growing district, and 

 repeat there your question, — What is mildew ? — 

 and there is every probability that you will be told 

 that it is a kind of mould which attacks the hop 

 plant, but which differs as much from both the 

 mildew of the farmer and the laundry-maid as they 

 differ from each other. The vine-grower has his 

 mildew, the gardener his mildewed onions, the 

 stationer his mildewed paper from damp cellars, 

 the plasterer his mildewed walls, and in almost 

 every calling, or sphere in life, wherever a minute 

 fungus commits its ravages upon stock, crop, or 

 chattels, to that individual owner it becomes a bug- 

 bear under the name of "mildew." Eeluctantly 

 this vague term has been employed as a portion 

 of the title to this chapter, but it must be limited 

 in its application to the " mildew of corn," known 

 to botanists as Puccinia graminis, and not to include 

 the numerous other microscopic Fungi to which the 

 name of mildew is often applied. 



The origin of this term and its true application 

 may undoubtedly be traced to melil-thau, " meal 

 dew." A singular proof of the ignorance which 

 prevails in regard to all the fungal diseases of corn, 

 may be found in the fact that at least one of our 

 best etymological dictionaries states that the mildew 

 in corn is the same as the ergot of the French. 

 Had the writer ever been a farmer, he would have 

 known the difference ; had he ever seen the two, 

 he could scarcely have made such a mistake. It 



