422 



ERGOT. 



pink fruit-bodies, in which spores are produced at about the 

 time when grasses are coming into bloom. 



Botanists recognize several species of ergot by the form of 

 their spring fruit ; but the differences between them do not 

 much concern their life-history, so that they need not be consid- 

 ered separately. From their h;i])it of attacking only the flowers, 

 they do not affect the general health of the grasses they grow on, 

 while as a lule they are not abundant enough to seriously lessen 

 the yield of seed. 



Ergot has long been em- 

 ployed in medicine, be- 

 cause of its action on the 

 uterus. That it should 

 cause abortion when fed 

 to stock is, therefore, not 

 surprising. Xothing can 

 be more misleading than 

 the popular belief that er- 

 g o t does not occur on 

 meadow grasses in suf- 

 ficient quantity to be dan- 

 gerous. In examining sus- 

 pected hay from several of the western States the A'eterinarian 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture found 2-6 per 

 cent, of its entire weight to ^e ergot. An equally erroneous and 

 common belief is that in pastures ergot cannot mature because 

 the grass is so closely cropped that it cannot flower. Under 

 close grazing most grasses produce scattering flowers, when very 

 small, and at times nearly every one of these is ergotized. 



Not long since considerable excitement was caused by the ap- 

 pearance of what was taken for "foot-and-mouth disease" in 



Fui. lefi. 



