on the Blight in Corn. 301 



may be seen with a common magnifying glass, is caused 

 by alternate longitudinal partitions of the bark, ihe one 

 imperforate, and the other furnished with one or two rows 

 of pores or mouths, shut in dry, open in wet weather, 

 and well calculated to imbibe fluid whenever the straw is 

 damp*. 



By these pores, which exist also on the leaves and 

 glumes, it is presumed that the seeds of the fungus gain 

 admission, and at the bottom of the hollows to which they 

 lead (see Plate V and VI. fig. 1. 2.), they germinate and push 

 their minute roots, no doubt (though these have not yet 

 been traced), into the cellular texture beyond the bark, where 

 they draw their nourishment, by intercepting the sap that 

 was intended by nature for the nutriment of the grain; the 

 corn of course becomes shrivelled in proportion as the fimgi 

 are more or less numerous on the plant ; and as the kernel 

 only is abstracted from the grain, while the cortical part 

 remains undiminished, the proportion oi flour to Iran m 

 bliffhted corn, is always reduced in the same degree as the 

 com is made lio;ht. Some corn of this year's crop will not 

 yield a stone of flour from a sack of wheat ; and it is not 

 impossible that in some cases the corn has been so com- 

 pletely robbed of its flour by the fungus, that if the propri- 

 etor should choose to incur the expense of thrashmg and 

 grinding it, bran would be the produce, with scarce an atom 

 of flour'for each grain. 



Every species of corn, properly so called, is subject to 

 the blight; but it is observable' that spring corn- is less 

 damaged by it than winter, and rye less than wheat, pro- 

 bably^bccause it is ripe and cut down before the fungus has 

 had time to increase in anv large degree. — Tull says that 

 « white cone or bearded wheat, which hath its straw like 

 a rush full of pith, is less subject to blight than Lammas 

 wheat, which ripens a week later." See page 74. The 

 spring wheat of Lincolnshire was not in the least shrivelled 

 this year, though the straw was in some degree infected : 



* Pores or mouths similar to these are placed by nature on the surface of 

 the leaves, branches, and stems, of all perfect plants, a provision mtended 

 no doubt to compensate, in some measure, the want of loco-motson m ve- 

 getables. A plant cannot when thirsty go to the brook and drink, but k 

 can open innumerable orifices for the reception of every degree of moisture, 

 which either falls in the shape of rain and of dev., or is separated from the 

 mass of water always held in solution by the atmosphere ; it seldom happens 

 in the driest season, that the night does not afford some refreshment ct this 

 kind, to restore the moisture that has been exhausted by the heats ot the 

 preceding day. 



Vol . c 1 . No. 84 . May 1 505 . X the 



