On Smut in Wheat, 63 



smut from the succeeding crop ; this plan may therefore 

 be tried, where the salt pickle cannot be used with 

 safety.— -fia^A Society Transactions. 



Cause of Increase of Insects in Grain. 



Mr. Somerville acknowledges that experience has 

 decided, that particular seasons are more favourable to 

 insects than others : yet supposes that they are propa- 

 gated chiefly by the chaff, in which they commonly lay 

 their eggs, being mixed with the bam yard manure ; in 

 proof of this he says, that in all cases where any material 

 injury has been done to them, it is to crops that have 

 been well manured. And further, that if the sweep- 

 ings of a barn, in which smutty wheat has been thrashed 

 or mixed with dung, be laid upon land where wheat is 

 to be sown, the crop will infallibly be tainted with the 

 disease. Trials of this have been made, and in some 

 instances four fifths of the plants sown, where the dung 

 .so mixed was laid, produced nothing but smut balls. 



The radical means of preventing the propagation of 

 the insect, according to Mr. Somerville, are 1st. to 

 collect and bum all the chaflf and dust; 2d. By applying 

 the manure in the spring instead of the autumn, on the 

 .surface : and also 3d. By mixing lime with the manure, 

 after it has completely fermented, by which the insects 

 will not only be destroyed, but putrefaction in the dung 

 promoted, and its effects upon the dung, rendered more 

 valuable. — Other substances possessing similar pro- 

 perties as lime may be used for the same purpose, but 



