110 FIELD CROPS 



There is no method of seed treatment that will prevent 

 smut, as the spores are not carried to any great extent 

 by the seed corn. Some of the practical means at hand of 

 checking this disease are to remove the smutted parts of 

 the corn plants from the field and burn them, and to use 

 care to prevent the smut spores from getting into the 

 manure. They usually get into the manure through feeding 

 smutted stalks to cattle. Rotation of crops will have a 

 tendency to decrease the prevalence of smut. likewise, 

 the application of manure to grass land a year or so in 

 advance of planting the field to corn will have a tendency 

 to reduce the infection from the manure. 



142. Feeding Smutted Com. Many persons have thought 

 that the '^ cornstalk disease," which sometimes attacks cat- 

 tle that are feeding in stalk fields, was caused by the eating 

 of smut. Experiments have shown that it is due to some 

 other cause, since quite large quantities of smut have been 

 fed to cattle, as much as several pounds a day to each ani- 

 mal, without any detrimental results. These experiments 

 indicate that there is some food value in the smut masses 

 and that smutted stalks may be fed without danger. 



143. Bacterial Diseases. Corn is subject to several 

 bacterial diseases, but the damage done by them is not 

 serious and they need not be discussed. 



INSECTS AFFECTING CORN 



144. Wireworms. Wireworms, which are the larvae of 

 the chck beetle, sometimes do serious damage to corn for a 

 year or so following the breaking up of sod land. The 

 beetles deposit their eggs in sod land, and the following spring 

 the eggs hatch in the form of small, reddish-brown, shiny 

 worms. These worms live in the soil for a couple of years 

 before they change into the beetle form. On this account 

 they give trouble longer than do cutworms. The most effec- 

 tive manner of combating these worms is fall plowing, 



