162 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. X. 



vegetative power. Doubts have indeed been raised whether the lime is 

 in any way serviceable; and it is certain that it is not used in addition to 

 those solutions of copperas which are employed as steeps on the continent. 

 Dry lime, in powder, would certainly have no effect; but in a modified state 

 of moisture the steep is imbibed by the lime, and, as they mutually saturate 

 each other, the mixture thus probabl,' acquires a corrosive power which 

 operates more effectually upon the smut than the brine would if applied 

 alone*: thus, in a series of experiments recorded in Young's Annals of 

 Agriculture t, it was found that a steep of lime-water alone, in which 

 wheat was immersed during four-and-twenty hours, proved powerfully pre- 

 ventive of disease, while the good effects of unmixed brine were very 

 inconsiderable; we therefore see no objection to the use of lime, for, if 

 properly employed, it can do no harm. 



Of the two steeps above mentioned, that of urine is the most efficient, but 

 it should be neither too fresh nor too stale ; for it is ineffectual in the one 

 case, and injurious in the other: its strength also differs according to the 

 nature of the food from whicli it is extracted, and is more powerful when 

 produced by human beings than animals; it is also in the most perfect 

 state when disengaging itself from the ammonia %. The seed should be sown 

 as soon as it is dry ; for if suffered to continue longer than a day or 

 two in sacks, or large heaps, it is apt to heat and lose its powers of 

 vegetation. Among the numerous other steeps which have been tried, 

 that of sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol — a preparation of which is much 

 used as a wash for wheat in Flanders, and some parts of France and Switz- 

 erland — has been highly commended by Sir John Sinclair as a preventive 

 of smut, and has been in many instances successfully employed for that 

 purpose in this country. The modes of using it are described to be as 

 follows: — 



Into eight quarts of boiling water, put one {lound of blue vitriol ; and while it is quite 

 hot, three bushels of wheat are wetted with five quarts of the liquid ; at the end of three 

 hours the remaining three quarts are added, and the wheat is suffered to remain three 

 hours longer in the solution. The whole should be stirred three or four times during the 

 six hours, and 1 he light grains skinamed off. Then add a sufficient quantity of slaked 

 lime to perfectly dry it. Or, 



After dissolving five pounds of the sulphate of copper in hot water, then add as much 

 cold water as ma_\ be sufficient to cover three bushels of wheat. After being repeatedly 

 stirred and cleared of light grains, it is suffered to remain in the liquid five or six hours ; 

 but it has remained in some instances from twelve to twenty-four hours without any bad 

 effect being experienced. 



After the first two or three hags — of three bushels each — have passed through this liquid, 

 one pound of the sulphate should be added for each succeeding bag, until ten or twelve 

 bags have been used, when a fresh quantity should be prepared. 



Either of these modes may be used with safety, and a probable certainly 

 of success. Sir John says that a gentleman who emploved the latter upon 

 his recommendation, and who had suffered so severely by smut during four 

 preceding years, that he had considerable breadths of wheat rendered abso- 

 lutely unsaleable by the ravages of the disease, had thirty-three acresof wheat 

 sown in the autumn, and nine acres of Talavera wheat sown in the spring, 

 the seed of which was steeped in the solution, and crops were obtained from 

 both entirely free from disease, and various experiments of a similar nature 

 have been attended with nearly equal advantage. He adds, indeed — " that his 



* See a prize essay " On the Diseases of Wheat" in vol. xiv. of the Bath and West of 

 England Agric. Soc. by the Rev. Robert Hoblyn ; and some remarks on it in vol. xv. of 

 the same work. 



f Vol. xli. p. 12. See also the Survey of Bedfordshire, p. 367. 



;|; See vol. i. chap, x, p. 229. 



