404 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



We did not much blame farmers for not treating their entire seed 

 crop for smut when there was no method available except the Jensen hot 

 water treatment. This is effective, but it requires very particular work, 

 must be done the day before sowing, and as oats treated with hot water 

 cannot be sown through an ordinary drill, to treat an entire crop in this 

 way would involve labor which the farmer cannot spare. The formalin 

 treatment costs but little except careful work, can be done in advance, 

 is equally effective, and the time has gone when there is any excuse for 

 sowing untreated oats. 



If our readers do not belie^'e this, let them go ahead the old way, 

 and after their oats head out, let them go into the field with a hoop off 

 an old bucket, let it drop into the standing grain, then count the entire 

 number of stalks enclosed within the hoop, then count the number of 

 sick heads. To these add the number of undeveloped heads which show 

 weakness, and they will learn something that will be to their advantage 

 ever after. 



Just now, for the sake of new subscribers, we will say again that the 

 oats smut is sown with the grain, that the smut spores cannot be discov- 

 ered with the naked eye, that when the oats germinate they germinate, 

 that the smut plant grows inside the oats stalk and by the time the oats 

 head out and are forming seed, these smut plants take possession of 

 more or less of the heads, blight them, and are blown by the wind into 

 the rest of the field and into the neighbors' fields. The smut growing in 

 the oats plant so weakens it that in many cases it does not make its 

 full growth, in some cases does not head at all, and in other cases sends 

 up a very short, immature head. The time for birth came, but there was 

 not strength enough to bring forth. 



Any man who will try the experiment and notice the superior thrift 

 of his treated oats, the scarcity of undeveloped heads, the vigorou.-> 

 growth and greater yield, will be convinced of what we are now trying 

 to tell him and which he must either take on faith or learn by his own 

 experience. This smut treatment is no longer experimental. AVe have 

 published numbers of letters from men who have tried it over large sec- 

 tions of the country and in only one case was failure reported and this 

 was due to formalin that had been standing a long time and was of insuf- 

 ficient strength. If farmers in any neighborhood will adopt this method, 

 it will not be difficult to secure the services of an efficient druggist who 

 will prepare the formalin, have it fresh, and sell it at a reasonable price. 

 It is well to state that this treatment is not efficient for corn nor for 

 the loose smut in wheat. An efficient remedy for these has not yet been 

 discovered. The stinking smut, that is the smut in wheat that leaves 

 the grain apparently all right in shape but a mass of black spores, can 

 be prevented by the use of sulphate of copper, or blue stone, in which 

 very few wheat growers need instruction. 



