50 British Uredinecs and Ustilaginece. 



stripe of a dark livid colour, obvious to a person riding on 

 the road at a considerable distance, 



" The part affected resembled the tail of a comet, the 

 bush itself representing the nucleus, on one side of which 

 the sensible effect reached about twelve yards, the tail 

 pointing towards the south-west, so that probably the effect 

 took place during a north-east wind. 



" At harvest, the ears near the bush stood erect, hand- 

 ling soft and chaffy ; the grains slender, shrivelled, and 

 light. As the distance from the bush increased the effect 

 was less discernible, until it vanished imperceptibly. 



" The rest of the piece was a tolerable crop, and the 

 straw clean, except on a part which was lodged, where 

 the straw nearly resembled that round the barberry ; but 

 the grain on that part, though lodged, was much heavier 

 than it was on this, where the crop stood erect. 



" The grain of the crop, in general, was thin-bodied ; 

 nevertheless ten grains, chosen impartially out of the ordi- 

 nary corn of the piece, took twenty-four of the barberried 

 grains, chosen equally impartially, to balance them." 



In 1784, Marshall repeated his experiment at Statfold, 

 in Staffordshire, with the same result. He says * — 



" Upon the whole, although I have not from this year's 

 experience been able to form any probable conjecture as to 

 the cause of the injury, it nevertheless serves to fix me still 

 more firmly in my opinion that the barberry is injurious 

 to wheat." 



Withering, writing in 1787 of Berberis vulgaris, says.t 

 " This shrub should never be permitted to grow in corn- 

 lands, for the ears of wheat near it never fill, and its influ- 

 ence in this respect has been known to extend as far as 

 three hundred or four hundred yards across a field." 



* Marshall, " Rural Economy of the Midland Counties" (1790), vol. ii. 



p. II. 



t Withering, "Botanical Arrangement" (1787), 2nd edit., p. 366. 



