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- 388 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
From a published letter by Hon. Horace Davis, member of ‘Cones 
gress from San Francisco, and the largest miller on the Pacific Slope: — 
In early times we were much troubled with smutty wheat, but have little now, + 
owing to the use of blue-stone on the seed by the farmers. Ihave seen fields 
where part of the seed was treated with blue-stone and part not, and the difference : 
was as plain as between a field of barley and of oats. It is hard to give any exact at ‘ae 
rule as to application ; the most practical farmers tell-me they use 6 pounds to each 7 ae 
ton of seed-wheat. It is dissolved in water enough to wet this quantity of wheat, — ae 
and the wheat is put into bags, say 50.to 60 pounds, and immersed in the solution — —_ 
for six or seven minutes, just enough to wet all the wheat. Then itistaken out ~ — 
and laid on sloping boards at the end of the trough to drain. The solution is put 
into a trough built for this purpose, something like a horse-trough. The bags are 
‘turned over frequently in this solution to insure the wetting of all the wheat. , 
You can rely upon it that blue-stone is a dead shot for smut in California. By 
blue-stone I mean the sulphate of copper. 
Extract from a published letter on this subject by Prof. E. W. 
Hilgard, University of California, College of Agriculture: _ ae 
As regards the blue-stoning of seed-wheat, the solution used is asstrong as it can | 
be made at the ordinary temperature. Such a solution contains about 3 pounds of 
blue-stone to 5 quarts of water. The time of immersion varies somewhat; the 
most definite description given is that a half sack should remain in the saturated Sa 
solution at least three minutes, and be turned about several times in the interval to — if 
make sure of wetting thoroughly. When a weaker solution is used the grain may 
be left with it until it begins to sprout. The sacks are usually left unopened until ~~ 
used for sowing. There is no drying done on purpose, unless it is to be used in the 
seed-drill. It will work perfectly with the centrifugal sower without drying. In — 
general I would be in favor of the strong solution and short immersion. The work _ os 
is then done quicker, and if the grain is afterward left in the sack for some hours =~ . 
the application is sure to be effectual. Again, the strong solution is more certain 
to render the grain distasteful to birds and insect enemies, and gives a margin for 
killing fungoid germs round about the young seedling. There seems to be little 43 
danger to the vitality of the seed from the biue-stone. Of course the blue-stone ~ ~~ 
will not prevent the smut germs left over in the fields from previous seasons from 
attacking the developed plant. It simply kills the germs in [on] the seed that 4 
would otherwise develop along with the latter, and take the plant in its early ' 
stages. A field that has been very smutty during the previous season will be apt ’ 
to show some on the grain of the next one despite blue-stoning, but persistence in 7 
the practice will be sure to put an end to the fungus germs, save sofaras theymay =~ 
be furnished by kind neighbors above the wind. % 4 
4 
‘ 
Prof. M. A. Scovell, director of the Kentucky Experiment Sta- ay 
tion, writes as follows in the bulletin of the station of September, “4 
1887, p. 14: 
This disease (smut) was in all our wheat last year, consequently our seed-wheat — /_ 
contained smut grains. To prevent its recurrence this year all our varieties of ! 
wheat were treated with a solution of blue vitriol (blue-stone) béfore sowing. The - 
method of applying the solution of blue vitriol was as follows : Ten pounds of blue_ 
vitriol were dissolved in 8 gallons of water, and the solution placed ina tub. The 
seed-wheat was put into the solution and well stirred, care being taken not to put 
enough wheat in to come to the ‘top of the solution. After skimming off floating 
wheat and particles, the solution was poured off into a second tub, the wheat _ 
drained, and spread on boards to dry. The solution was re-used as often as we had — 
wheat to treat in this manner. ‘ / : 
This treatment proved entirely successful, not the least smut appearing in any of 
the plots where the seed had been treated in this way, while the plot planted for 
comparison, without treating the seed wheat, contained about the same amount of 
smut as-last year. ‘ 
It was thought that by having the solution cover the wheat the smut grains 
would float, andinthis way all butadhering spores would be removed, and_these 
would be easily killed by the copper sulphate solution. ; pa 
pe Sat £ 
All other preventive measures will be likely to be of little availif 
the manure put upon the land is contaminated with smut spores 
