64 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science. 
able grains. The agitation of this question, enlivened by the fact that 
a very severe rust infection in 1916 caused a loss of over 200,000,000 
bushels of wheat, resulted in the present barberry eradication campaign, 
comprising the upper Mississippi and the Western States, with Montana 
as the western and Ohio as the eastern limits. The campaign is con- 
ducted by the Office of Cereal Investigations, of the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture, in co-operation with the State Agricultural 
Colleges. 
The barberry has been introduced into Indiana probably during the 
second half of the nineteenth century. Bushes have been found in the 
State which the owners claim to be over fifty years old. Most of the 
plantings, however, are of a more recent origin. The barberry scouts, 
who made a careful survey last spring and summer of the cities and 
larger towns in the northern thirty-six counties, located approximately 
1,500 plantings. It is estimated that there are not less than 3,000 plant- 
ings within the State. The barberries are not so numerous in the coun- 
ties south of the Indianapolis line, especially in the extreme southern 
end of the State, where they are very rare. Some of these plantings 
were very extensive, each containing several hundred bushes. Along the 
main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, running from Chicago to 
Columbus, Ohio, there was a planting at nearly every station. Some 
were hedges several hundred to 1,000 feet long. At Valparaiso, Ander- 
son and other cities large lots and even whole city squares were sur- 
rounded by barberry hedges. The country districts seem to be com- 
paratively free from barberries, so far as can be judged from general 
observations. Several communities have been found, however, where 
bushes were growing on the farms and playing a very important role, 
as will be pointed out later, in starting local rust epidemics. 
The earliest recorded mention of wheat rust causing serious injury 
in Indiana is found in the annual report of the Indiana State Board of 
Agriculture for 1868, pp. 364-365, in which Professor R. S. Brown, in 
discussing this disease and its control, makes this statement: “Culti- 
vating early varieties of wheat, and immediately cutting, if the rust 
strikes the straw, are the only remedies we have to propose for this evil, 
which so often blasts, in a night, the brightest prospects of the farmer.” 
The rust collection of the Department of Botany, Purdue University 
Agricultural Experiment Station, contains specimens of wheat stem rust 
from nearly every section of the State. 
In 1892 Dr. Arthur’ reported the following observation: “At one 
edge of a field of wheat on the Experiment Station farm at Lafayette, 
Indiana, were many large barberry bushes, forming a thicket some 
twenty-five by fifty feet. The season was favorable to the production 
3 Proc. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci. 23d Ann. Rep. 
