1882.] FUNGI INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 179 



you have established a dairy, your milk product has to be re- 

 newed by new cows or by fresh cows, as it is reduced by the 

 failure of those that are going out of milk, and it causes a 

 person- to keep a largely increased number of cows in order to 

 supply the demand, and it is a great deal of trouble and a 

 great deal of expense. I have for three years been in the 

 habit of going througli my corn field, and cutting pff this 

 smut, but I have left it on the ground. I find it on all por- 

 tions of the corn stalk, a good deal upon the tassel and a 

 good deal in the ear, and in the first, second, and third joints 

 below the ear, even to the ground. I liave found large quan- 

 tities of it even at the sixth joint. While the gentleman was 

 speaking, I was thinking — "You did not half do your work; 

 you should have carried that smut off in a basket." The 

 question then came, — "Will it pay? How much do the 

 wages and board of a man cost a year, and how much damage 

 have you suffered, do you think, at a rough estimate, in three 

 years 't Fifteen hundred dollars — five hundred dollars a year 

 for the pay of a man and his board. Well, you could have 

 kept a pretty good man for tliat, and you would not have liad 

 to employ him for over a month." I think it would pay any 

 person who has a large milk dairy and who raises corn to 

 take the utmost pains to carry off this smut in a basket and 

 haul brush and even cut hickory wood, if necessary, to make 

 a big fire and destroy it. I have a very strong suspicion that 

 that is the cause of our trouble, and I am so far satisfied of it 

 that when I cut my corn next year I shall send two men into 

 the field to cut off the smut and carry it off and burn it. I 

 shall have another man to go through my fodder corn and be 

 very particular and cut off all this smut and carry it off, and 

 I will keep a fire in the field, if necessary, all summer, and 

 fight it out on that line. 



Mr. , of Warren. I would suggest, right here, 



that perhaps this difficulty is not all owing to the smut in 

 corn. I know many farmers who have serious trouble in re- 

 gard to this matter who feed no fodder corn ; it must come, 

 therefore, from something else. I think our speaker hinted 

 to us, in fact, said, that this ergot or smut grows upon the 



