228 GRASSES OF IOWA. 



Beal* states that under certain conditions smut is likely to 

 be injurious to cattle. The experiments made by Mooref also 

 indicate, like those of Smith, that smut is not injurious. 



Beginning on the morning of January 17, 1894, and continu- 

 ing until nooa of February 2 (sixteen acd one-half days), the 

 heifers were fed moraing and evening with from two to three 

 quarts of a mixture of equal parts by weight of cub hay and a 

 mixture of corn meal, middlings and wheat bran, and sixteen 

 quarts of smut. No injurious affects were observed by Moore. 



It seems reasonable to conclude from these experiments that 

 under proper conditions corn smut is not injurious. In our 

 experience no cases have ever been reported to us where cattle 

 were supposed to have died from eating corn smut. 



Prevention. — In previous paragraphs it has been stated that 

 smut does not necessarilly enter the corn plant when the latter 

 germinates but at a later period. From this it fol ows that it 

 will be useless to treat the seed. Experiments made at the Agri- 

 cultural college ind'cate, that no well-known fungicide or the 

 hot water treatment is^eff<fctive. The treated kernels in some 

 cases contained as much smut as those not treated. As indi- 

 cated in a previous paragraph, Bessey found a considerable 

 increase in smut where corn was planted in the same field 

 several years in succession and one of us has also observed the 

 same condition. It has also been shown that when a variety 

 is not acclimated it is much more subject to smut. This fact 

 has again been noticed in a striking manner, in some South 

 American and Mexican corn grown on the college grounds, 

 where there had been no corn for years and no corn fields near 

 it this year, nor for some years. These particular varieties 

 produce so much foliage and the vegetative orgacs are so 

 vigorous that they are unable to properly resist the attacks of 

 the fungus. 



It has also been recommended that the smut boils should be 

 carefully collected at husking time and burned. It would not 

 be a troublesome operation to throw all smutted corn in a 

 separate small box. This would remove the smut from the 

 kernels, but it would be impossible to collect and destroy the 

 smut boils on cornstalks w^here it is more abundant than in the 

 ears and in smut occurring on leaves. Financially we believe 

 that this operation would not pay. The best and most feasible 



•Rep. state Board of Agrl. Mich. 1880: 288. 



tOorn stalk disease. Bull. Bureau of Animal Industry. U. S. Dept. of Agrl. 10: 

 47. 1895. 



