34 Cultivation of Arable Land. JPheat. Smut. Uft of Steeps in. 



feed is produced in the plants long anterior to impregnation, which cannot be 

 performed until the flower is open, and the duft of the anther fully ripe. 



Onthefe grounds, it is conceived that, for want of impregnation, or the vivify 

 ing principle, the wheat corn may putrify, as is the cafe with the addle eggs of 

 oviparous animals.* 



The enquiries of a writer who feems to have paid much attention to the fub- 

 ject, are, however, highly in favour of the opinion, that the malady is produced 

 by the attacks of an infect ; and that, though unqueftionably infectious, it may 

 be prevented, or cured, by the ufe of different kinds of fteeps, fuch as have been 

 already defcribed.f Others have likewife fuggefted that fteeps, prepared with 

 aloes, tobacco, and hellebore, may be ufeful for the fame purpofe, when ap 

 plied during the growth of the crop, by means of a piece of flannel immerfed in 

 them, and drawn different ways of the ridges, by two perfons walking in the 

 furrows, fd as to touch the ears.J The proper time of performing this bfi nefs 

 is when the weather is fine and dry.|| 



* Darwin s Phytologia, p. 323. 



f Communications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. II. p. 226. J Ibid. 



|j The fads and observations on which thefe conclufions are founded, are detailed in the following 

 manner by Mr. Somerville, in the fecond volume of Communications to the Board of Agriculture. 

 Some years ago, he fays, he collected a quantity of fmutted ears from one field of wheat, in which 

 they were very numerous, and a number of healthy well filled ears from another field, in which there 

 was no fmut. The grains were rubbed out of both, intimately mixed, and kept in a box for two 

 months, at the end of which they were rubbed between the hands in fuch a manner as to break the 

 whole of the fmutball. The parcel was then divided into two equal parts, oneof which was three or 

 four times warned with pure water, and well rubbed between the hands at each wafliing, and after 

 wards fown in a drill in his garden : the other half was fown in another drill without any wafliing or 

 preparation whatever ; the foil and every other circumftance was equal. Both parcels vegetated at 

 the fame time, and for about two months thereafter there was no vifible difference in their appearance ; 

 about that period he, however, obferved that many of the plants in the drill, that had been fown without 

 being warned, were ofa darker colour than the others ; thefe, when narrowly examined, were of a 

 dirty green. The plants in the drill that had been warned were a-U of one colour, and feemin&amp;lt;*Iy 

 healthy ; as the feafon advanced, the difference in colour became more ftriking, and continued to in- 

 creafe till the grain was fairly out of the blade ; about which time many of the dirty green ears be^an 

 to exhibit fymptoms of decay. Asfoon as the ear was fairly /hot out, the whole of thofe in the un-f 

 xvafhed drill, that had the dirty green appearance above defcribed, were found to contain nothin&quot; but 

 fmut ; and thefe fmutted ears were in the proportion of more than fix to one of the healthv ones: 

 while, on the contrary, the drill in which the wafhed grains had been fown, and which conlifted of: 

 feveral hundred grains, had hardly a fmutted or unhealthy ear in it, The fame experiment was re* 



