New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 139 
OATS. 
In 1884 the average loss from oat smut on the Station farm 
was 9.5 per ct., as shown by careful counts made at several different 
points.° In 1886 the loss was 8.48 per ct. No doubt the loss on 
many farms over the State was equally large. In 1886 two ex- 
periments on oat smut were carried out. One experiment was 
designed to determine whether oat smut is carried with the seed. 
The other was a test of different chemicals for treating the seed to 
prevent smut. In the first experiment a quantity of badly smutted 
oats was divided into four lots and sown in four widely separated 
parts of the Station farm. On all four plats the resulting crop 
was badly smutted —in one case there was 30.86 per ct. of smut. 
So high a percentage of smut in the crop was strong evidence (but 
not rigid proof) that the disease had been transmitted with the 
seed. We now know that such is actually the case. 
In the second experiment an attempt was made to kill the smut 
spores on the seed oats by soaking the oats in chemicals. Tests 
were made with copper sulphate, iron sulphate, caustic potash, 
common salt, saltpeter, cattle urine and a mixture of cattle urine 
and lime. The results were encouraging. In all the plats from 
treated seed there was considerably less smut than in the check 
plat from untreated seed. In one of the copper sulphate plats and 
in the caustic potash plat there was no smut at all, while the check 
plat showed 28.81 per ct. smut. 
Further experiments along this line were discouraged for a time 
by the discovery in Denmark, in 1887, of the Jensen hot water treat- 
ment, which soon became popular because of its cheapness. Then 
came the formalin treatment, which has been tested by many of the 
experiment stations and is the one now: most generally recommended 
and used. 
At this Station, tests of formalin were made in 1897.1 
Different strengths of formalin, Ceres powder, lysol and potassium 
sulphide were compared with hot water. Ceres powder and potas- 
slum sulphide failed to wholly prevent smut. Moreover, they were 
expensive. Lysol, formalin and hot water all prevented smut com- 
pletely, but when cheapness and simplicity of treatment were taken 
into consideration; formalin seemed to have the advantage. The 
* Rpt. 3:382 (1884). 
™ Rpt. 5:124-130 (1886). 
. ™ Bul. 131 (1897); same in Rpt. 16:294-306. 
