3 
enlargement of the straw whatever; 
or there may be large galls or ex- 
crescences, as it were, bursting out 
of the base of the sheath at one side, 
some of these abnormal growths hav- 
ing pseudo-rootlets extending down- 
ward from their lower extremity. 
Sometimes the straw will make about 
normal growth and the hardened sec- 
tions will be restricted to an inch or 
thereabouts just above the lower 
joints; and, again, the growth will 
not exceed 3 or 4 inches, often not 
heading at all, or with aborted head 
and with the straw galled or hardened 
to the base of the head. In some 
cases there is no outward indication 
whatever of attack, the affected part 
being wholly inclosed in the sheath, 
and when this last is removed the 
presence of the cells is indicated only 
by a slight discoloration, and _fre- 
quently by a few small, more or less 
irregular, elevated ridges. 
In threshing the grain the hardened 
portions of the straw, as shown in 
figure 5, break up into pieces of from 
half an inch to an inch or more in 
length, many of which do not go over 
with the straw and chaff, but remain 
with the grain. The presence of these 
bits of broken straw remaining in the 
-grain is frequently the first evidence 
the farmer has seen of the presence of 
the pest in his fields. Millers and 
elevator men note them also, and in 
sections where the pest has committed 
serious depredations several bushels of 
these hardened bits of straw are found 
after each day’s cleaning of the grain. 
EFFECTS ON THE KERNEL. 
The wheat heads from infested 
stems are foreshortened, and _ the 
number of kernels thereby necessarily 
Fig. 4.—One effect of the joint-worm in wheat 
straw (after Webster). 
