413 
ers and improvers been limited to the most valuable classes of stock, but equally so to 
those of minor commercial value. Women, too, of equal rank and position in society 
with men, both in Europe and America, may be classed in the noble array of fine-stock 
improvers—all in their labors bensfactors of mankind. 
God has appointed our lot in a country of diversified climates, and blessed it with 
a wondrous fertility of soils. If a due improvement of our advantages be hereafter 
neglected, on those guilty of that neglect will rest the penalty; and yet, when 
another Centennial of American Independence shall arrive, we trust that those who 
then succeed us may rejoice, as we, their progenitors, now do at the present, in a still 
higher advancement to crown their labors with thanksgiving and gratitude to the 
benignant Father of Mercies for the successes they shall have achieved and enjoyed. 
MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS. 
By THomas TayLor, MICROSCOPIST. 
CONIOMYCETES USTILAGINEI.— Ustilaginei is the name given to a 
family of Coniomycetes fungi related to the Uredinei, generally dis- 
tinguished by their growing in the interior of the organ, (especially the 
ovaries and anthers,) of flowering plants, causing deformity, absorption 
of the internal tissue, and its replacement by a pulverulent substance 
consisting of the spores of the fungi. In the earlier stages, the infected 
organ exhibits either a grumous mass, or an interwoven filamentous 
mycelium, from which acrogenous spores arise; finally, the mycelium dis- 
appears, and a dark-colored (often fetid) powder remains, composed 
entirely of the spores, which are simple.’ 
Ustilago segetum—A genus of Ustilagineit frequently found on cereals 
and grasses, forming the blight called smut of corn, commonly infesting 
wheat, oats, barley, and other grasses, filling the ears with a black pow- 
der of smooth spores about 1.5000” in diameter, in corn sometimes about 
twice as large in the varieties attacking species of Bromus. The smut 
of maize, U. maidis, has minutely echinate spores 1.2500” in diameter. 
Sedges are infested by U. olivacea with olive-colored spores. U. an- 
therarum, growing in the anthers of Caryophyllacec, has violet-colored 
spores. Many other species are described by Tulasne.* The cuts rep- 
resenting Ustilago segetum and Tilletia caries are from original draw- 
ings by M. C. Cook, and form part of my series of water-color sketches 
and drawings representing microscopic fungi at the Centennial Exhibi- 
tion. It is proposed to publish the entire series in the reports of the 
Department. 
FACTS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 
BEST TIME TO SOW OATS IN THE SouTH.—Mr. D. J. Sanders, secretary 
of the agricultural and mechanical association in Jackson County, Geor- 
gia, expresses the opinion that in that section 90 per cent. of the crops 
of oats sown in the spring, or in the autumn after Christmas, either rust 
or fall down before ripening, and that unseasonable sowing is the main 
cause of failure in the oat-crop at the South. He adds: ‘ They should 
be sown in August and September, or the first week in October, in order 
to insure a crop.” 
PROSPEROUS AGRICULTURE.—The secretary of the agricultural asso- 
ciation in Jackson County, Georgia, reports that in that county the oat- 
_ crop is better than last year by 50 per cent., corn by 100 per cent., and 
sorghum by 200 per cent. The sorghum-crop also surpasses that of last 
year in quality. Under date of September 22 he reports that tables in 
* See micrographic dictionary. 
3A 
