On Mildew. 165 
stalks of wheat and other grain when struck by the 
mildew. | 
You have seen many statements by American (and 
T believe British) agriculturists, of wheat being reaped 
while the grain was soft and milky, and the plants still 
green, or greenish; which nevertheless produced, if 
not a full sized, yet a tolerably plump kernel, and yield- 
eda very fine and uncommonly white flour. It has been 
as often said by the same agriculturists, that by such 
early reaping of grain, on the first appearance of mildew, 
you may obtain a valuable though not an abundant 
crop; the sap in the stalks continuing its natural 
course to the heads: whereas if the same grain remain- 
ed uncut, the seeds would be shrivelled, and often give 
chaff only instead of flour.—How is this to be account- 
ed for? The answer which has occurred to me, and 
which I will now state, while it furnishes an explana- 
tion of the declared fact, goes to confirm the theory of 
my country-man in the paper inclosed. It is this: 
The stalks of grain being severed from their roots, 
the source of the malady is cut off. The vessels of the 
stalks are no longer distended by a superabundance of 
sap ascending from the heated soil—they cease to re- 
ceive any. The bursted vessels, through the wide 
breaches in which, the sap, in its rapid ascent, was rush- 
ing, naturally close ; and the sap already received into 
the stalks (further aided perhaps by dews) pursues its 
gentle course to the heads, and fills the grain. 
The writer’s remark, that grain ia old fields which 
have been often dunged, is frequently mildewed, while 
that on new land escapes (for which, on his hypothesis, 
he assigns a natural reason,) comes in support of your 
