184 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of corn, one grown upon land where corn had not been planted 

 for a number of years, I do not know how many, and the 

 other grown in a field where corn had been grown repeatedly. 

 The seed was the same on those two fields and the manage- 

 ment the same. In the field where corn had not been grown 

 at all, there was no smut to speak of ; in the other field, 

 where corn had been ^rown previously, there was a large 

 quantity of smut. I have observed this same thing in a 

 number of instances at the west, so that I have no hesitation 

 in saying that one of the best preventives of smut is to de- 

 stroy the smut entirely and not let it go down upon the soil, 

 if you are going to grow corn in the same field again. 



I would like to ask Prof. Brewer if, the year there was so 

 much smut, there was not more abortion among cows than 

 during the* year previous to that. 



Mr. Gold. If that question is to be raised again, I would 

 like to say a word upon it. My dairy has been affected. 

 I have been unable to trace abortion, in my experience, to 

 the action of smut upon corn. It comes and it goes with 

 a certain mysteiious, contagious, or infectious influence. It 

 comes into a neighborhood or a dairy and stays there, and then 

 it leaves again, and we cannot give the why nor the where- 

 fore. I live on the borders of a long infected district. Dutch- 

 ess county, west of us, has been long infected, but it did not 

 come into western Connecticut until very recently. I have 

 traced it as it has spread from farm to farm, and as it came 

 into our town. When I told Prof. Johnson that it was on the 

 farm adjoining mine, he said, "Well, it is moving on head- 

 quarters ; we shall hear more from it." We have heard 

 more from it. It did move right on, and for two or three 

 years we have been suffering ; but for four months, I am 

 happy to say, I have had no case. I hope it has " moved 

 on." 



Mr. Webb. The first trouble that I had was in 1879, and 

 that was a year when we liad not an unusual quantity of smutty 

 corn, and since then I have been troubled more or less every 

 year, until I have suffered a good deal of damage ; but I am 

 happy to say, with Mr. Gold, that for the last four months, it 



