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THE SMUT, OR BLXT. 



In mauy sections of the west the last wheat crop was much injured by the 

 smut. For the purpose of separating it from the wheat, smut machines have 

 been invented, and millers have used these with more or less success ; but still 

 the market value of smutted wheat is lessened, as well as a loss in the amount 

 of the crop sustained by its presence. It is, therefore, much to be desu-ed that 

 the evil should be eradicated. 



If farmers could be induced to grow their seed-wheat, as suggested in the 

 article on the production of seeds iu the bi-monthly report for November and 

 December, 1864, the smut could be easily avoided; but we must not v/holly 

 rely upon what should be done, in a certain particular, as foregoing the neces- 

 sity of other suggestions to effect a similar result. We therefore invite atten- 

 tion to the character of this disease, that a knowledge of it may lead to a more 

 general guarding against it, and in compliance with the desire of several cor- 

 respondents. 



There are many varieties of smut, for it affects most of the grasses and grain 

 crops, but none injuriously, except the wheat plant. When the crop is matured, 

 it is found, sometimes, that even a third of the heads do not contain wheat 

 grains ; but where these should be, the chaff covering of the grain is found to be 

 filled with a very minute dust, nearly black, very fetid, of unpleasant odor, and 

 greasy. In the United States this disease is called stunt ; in England, butit. The 

 microscope reveals the fact that this dust is composed of grains, to which the 

 name sjyorcs has been given — a common term to designate all seeds that are 

 produced \>j flowerJess plants. A square surface inch would contain five or six 

 millions of these seeds, each of which can reprodue(j its kind, but to what ex- 

 tent, and under what conditions, is imperfectly known. It is evident, however, 

 that the conditions are such that but few of these seeds are successful iu repro- 

 duction, for otherwise the wheat crops would be destroyed by this disease. It 

 is a parasitic fungus growth — parasitic, because it is sustained by the sap of the 

 wheat plant, and not by its own ; and fungus, because it is a soft and morbid 

 excrescent growth, like the mushroom. 



Much difficulty has been found in making these smut-seeds grow by artificial 

 means, and hence the reason why the true character of the disease is so imper- 

 fectly understood. It differs from all like diseases in this— they, like the rust, 

 live by directly dran'ing their nutriment from the sap of the plant they 

 infest, never mingling with it ; but the smut seems to change the nature of the 

 sap of the wheat plant, so that, in maturing the grains, smut, and not wheat, is 

 the product. Before the wheat heads are visible it is found to have the posses- 

 sion of them, and the sap of the plant is of a darker color than that of a healthy 

 plant. 



But the success in germinating the seeds of the smut has been more marked 

 recently, and the results of the experiments indicate several stages of growth, 

 but Avhether all are essential to tl;e ultimate production of the seeds as found in 



