178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



move it, and will it pay ? That is a question that always 

 comes up in considering a matter of this kind — will it pay ? 

 I certainly do not think it will pay you to go over a wheat field 

 or a barley field and pick out all the smutty plants. If you 

 think it would, I wish you would try it. It is a question of 

 experiment. 



Question. I would inquire how smut affects stock ? 



Mr. Spurr. I went through the corn fodder when I fed 

 the cows every morning and tried to cut off and drop on the 

 ground all of this smut ; perhaps there was some that I did 

 not see. I supposed I had cut it all off, so that the cows 

 would not get any of it, but this fall I have had more trouble 

 with abortion in the cows than I have ever had before. I 

 have attributed this trouble to the cows getting some of this 

 ergot on the corn. Now, what 1 wanted to ask Mr. Halsted 

 was, whether he thinks, if a man is particular enough, he can 

 keep it from his cows ? 



Mr. Bill. Does it affect them in any other way than by 

 causing abortion ? 



Mr. Spurr. I could see no trouble with the cows whatever 

 until after I began feeding the corn. I began to feed it the 

 first of August and fed them through August and September 

 all they would eat, and about the twentieth of November this 

 trouble came on me. I never had had it before to any 

 extent. 



Mr. Webb. This is a matter in which I feel a great deal 

 of interest. There is something that has troubled me and 

 damaged me to the extent, as near as I can cipher, of one 

 thousand or two thousand dollars. A person who has a 

 large milk dairy well knows this difficulty among his cows. 

 It is a thing not easy to get rid of and it is one which is very 

 expensive. Now, those of us who have raised corn will recol- 

 lect that two years ago there was an unusual amount of corn 

 smut. That year this trouble commenced in my herd of 

 cows, and since I have been troubled every year to a consid- 

 erable extent and I have suffered very largely ; not, perhaps, 

 in the number of animals, as much as some others, but when 



