50 REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



Ranchi; further investigations will be carried out in this 

 area. 



The losses caused by " ufra ' are very heavy. In 

 Begumganj thana in 1910 the loss was estimated at 200,000 

 maunds of grain and in Chaumuhani in 1911 nearly half 

 the winter crop was lost. The supreme importance of 

 paddy as a food crop in Bengal and the virulence of this 

 disease will make it the major work of this section for 

 some time to come. 



An account of Sclerotiwn Oryzce Catt. was pub- 

 lished as a memoir of the Department. This fungus 

 has been found attacking rice in Burma, in Madras, and 

 also in Bihar and Orissa, in which latter province it has 

 been collected at Cuttack, at Pusa and near Ranchi. Pad- 

 dy infected by this parasite usually shows excessive tiller- 

 ing and lightness in the grain, in fact there is frequently 

 nothing within the glumes. In culture the morpho- 

 logy of the fungus proved more or less dependent 

 upon the nature of the nutrient medium. The observations 

 of Cattaneo, who regarded the sclerotia as spore contain- 

 ing organs, were not confirmed in the present memoir. 



Brief accounts of Rice Bunt (Tilletia horrida Tak.) 

 and False smut [Ustilaginoidea virens (Cke.) Tak.] were 

 published in Bulletin No. 34. The former has been the 

 cause of complaints from Germany, its spores having been 

 found in rice imported from Burma and Siam. Effective 

 remedies for this type of disease are known, should the 

 trouble become severe. 



(2) Sugarcane disease. — Complete accounts of the 

 principal diseases of this crop were published during the 

 year as memoirs of the Department. 



' Red rot ' has been the subject of previous publica- 

 tions of this section. In the most recent communication 

 the authors have worked out the mode of air-borne infection 

 in the field, a point which had long been obscure. It was 

 found that infection took place chiefly at the adventitious 

 root eyes, although penetration was also easy at the shoot 



