341 
Jensen has, however, shown that bunt in wheat and smut in oats or 
barley or rye can be almost wholly prevented by washing the seed 
before sowing, in water whose temperature is not lower than 130° F. 
nor higher than 135° F. The sacks to receive the seeds should also 
be disinfected. Professor Kellerman shows that if the seeds are 
previously soaked in cold water for eight hours the hot-water wash 
may have a temperature of 124° to 128°. I infer that the spores of 
the smut, having been by the winds blown over the field in the ripen- 
ing period, have stuck to the grains from that time on to the next 
sowing season. (Agr. Sci., Vol. IV, p. 100.) 
THUNDERSTORMS AND OZONE. 
A. L. Treadwell seems to have shown that the souring of milk 
during thunderstorms can not be attributed to any formation of 
ozone, and is more likely to be due,to the fact that the bacteria caus- 
ing this souring multiply with unusual rapidity during the warm 
sultry weather that precedes and accompanies thunderstorms. 
(Aer. sci., Vol. V, p. 108.) 
PRUNING VERSUS CLIMATE. 
Kraus (1886) in some experiments on pruning hop vines shows first 
that those that were not pruned had an advantage in the early 
growth, especially in the cold and wet of June, 1886, in Germany, but 
in consequence of this precocity the early ones suffered from frost. 
Those that were early pruned surpassed them in the harvest. 
Those that were pruned late gave the smallest harvest, but of 
the highest quality, the leaves remaining a beautiful green up to the 
harvest time, while those that were not pruned or those that were late 
pruned turned dark and soon yellowed. 
This explains why for a long time it has been impossible to define 
exactly the climate that is best for the cultivation of hops, since it is 
now evident that changes in the pruning, harmonizing with pecu- 
harities of weather or locality, have so great an influence upon the 
successful cultivation. (See Wollny, X, p. 236.) 
WHEAT, TEMPERATURE, AND RAIN IN ENGLAND. 
The wheat harvest of England has been studied by an anonymous 
writer. (Nature, 1891, vol. 48, p. 569.) I do not know the authori- 
ties for his statements as to the character of the harvests from year 
to year, but reproduce in the following tables the figures given by him 
as to the general character of the wheat harvests for each year and the 
corresponding mean temperatures and total rainfall for the months 
of June, July, and August as observed at the Royal Observatory, at 
Greenwich. Certain deductions are given by him as to the connection 
between the harvests and these items of the weather, but a more care- 
ful study of the figures convinces me that taken as they stand no infer- 
