146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



probability of ergotted rye bread being the cause of dangerous 

 gangrenous epidemics among the poor in certain districts of 

 France. The details of the sufferings to which these persons are 

 occasionally subjected are shocking to humanity. Their extremi- 

 ties rot off; and some have been known to lose all their limbs, 

 which in the progress of the disorder fell off at the joints before the 

 shapeless trunk was released from its torment. In one instance, 

 related by Tessier, a poor man whose family were in a state of 

 starvation, ventured to make bread of some ergotted rye which 

 he had begged of a farmer, but had been cautioned against using 

 it. It killed himself, his wife, and five out of his seven children. 

 Of the two which recovered from the effects of the ergot, one 

 became deaf and dumb, and had one of its legs drop off'. 



Now this ergotized state of grain attacks, or is liable to attack 

 all grasses and cereals, but particularly rye, and I have called your 

 attention to it in order to suggest that some obscure veterinary 

 diseases may be traced to its use. 



Some grasses, particularlj^ rye grass, Lolium perrenne, is subject 

 to the same disease, and little doubt is entertained, by those who 

 have most fully investigated the subject, that many cases of 

 abortion in cows can be directly traced to this cause. Dr. Buck- 

 nam. Professor of Botany at the Koyal Agricultural College of 

 England, relates that some years since the late Earl Ducie suffered 

 considerably from the dropping of the calves of some of his most 

 valuable stock. At this time a quantity of ergotized rye grass 

 was gathered in the field where these accidents took place, and 

 he believed this diseased grass to be the cause. 



I would gladly devote time to a consideration of other parasitic 

 fungi attacking ceret^ls, but I shall now pass to a brief con- 

 sideration of a fungus which produces a disease in the under- 

 ground stems, or tubers of the potato. Instead of presenting all 

 the contradictory theories relative to this disease, such as the 

 hygrometric theory of Liebig, and the exhaustion theory of Crum, 

 I shall give in a few words the most widely accepted theory of 

 what has been such a destructive malady. It is caused by a 

 fungus, Peronospora. Dr. Speerschneider of Germany has experi- 

 mented with certain phases of the potato disease, and his results 

 have been confirmed by Kuhn and DeBary. These investigators 

 have not merely looked at the blighted leaves and seen the fungus 

 there, but have watched the fungus as it rapidly sends out its 

 branches into the still fresh and healthy portions of the leaf, and 



