IMPROV/JMIJXT or OATH 193 



tho smut masses, while in covered smut the chaff remains 

 in its natural state, enclosing the smut spores. Smutted 

 heads mature before the healthy ones, and as the straw of 

 the diseased plants is usually shorter, the smutted heads are 

 not readily seen at harvest time and the actual damage from 

 the disease is usually underestimated. It probably averages 

 2 or 3 per cent of the crop, or from $6,000,000 to $10,000,000 

 annually for the United States. In some fields it may destroj^ 

 as much as half the crop . Fortunately, both kinds of oat 

 smut are easily and cheaply controlled by the use of the 

 formaldehyde solution (Section 196, c). This treatment is so 

 cheap and so entirely effective that farmers cannot afford to 

 neglect it. Seed should be treated at least as often as every 

 alternate year, and treatment every year is much safer. 

 Even though all the smut on a given farm may be destroyed, 

 it is pretty certain that some of the spores will be scattered 

 through the threshed grain, having been carried from neigh- 

 boring farms in the threshing machine, so that treatment 

 every year is the surest way of keeping down this disease. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE CROP 



238. Opportunities for Improvement. The oat crop has 



received much less attention from plant breeders and farmers 

 in America than corn and wheat. Some European breeders 

 have devoted their efforts to the improvement of oats and 

 have obtained remarkably good results. Some of the best 

 varieties of oats now grown in the United States, particularly 

 in the northern portion, have been produced by Swedish and 

 English plant breeders. Experiment stations are devoting 

 considerable attention to oat breeding, and the development 

 of high-yielding strains is likely to result. 



Qualities which breeders aim to combine to a greater or 

 less extent are increased yield, increased size of individual 

 grains, greater weight per bushel, greater proportion of ker- 

 ne] to hull, earher maturity, and greater resistance to lodg- 



