No. 3. 



Wheat. — Diseases in Wheat. 



83 



Sykes. — Well, after that, I think we may 

 go to supper ! 



Frank. — Thank you, Father, these stories 

 will make a beautiful pair of portraits, and 

 shall be preserved by me with gratitude ; to- 

 gether with those beautiful lines which you 

 gave me yesterday, aud which have since 

 been continually in my thoughts — 



For every evil under llie sun. 

 There is a remedy, or tliere is none ; 

 If there be one, try to find it. 

 If there be none— never mind it. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Wlieat. Diseases iu ^Vlleat• 



[Concluded from page 44.] 



Wheat is subject to various accidents and 

 diseases, some of them peculiar to itself. The 

 most dreaded and destructive of the diseases 

 to which it is liable, is blight, so termed from 

 its effects upon the ear, or mildew from its 

 supposed cause, namely mel-dew, from an 

 old opinion that it was produced by honey- 

 dew falling from the air. 



In many of the wheat growing sections of 

 the Union, these diseases are denominated 

 rust and smut ; under the term rust, blight 

 and mildew are included. But these dis- 

 eases, if they are really distinct, are never- 

 theless so nearly allied, that for all practical 

 purposes they may be considered as one. 



It may be assumed as a principle, that the 

 immediate cause of every distemper which 

 attacks the plants of wheat, may be ascribed 

 to the state of the season, combined with the 

 circumstances of soil, situation and seed. It 

 is indeed not necessary to class them ; but 

 the great body of farmers consider them as 

 distinct disorders, arising solely from the in- 

 fluence of the atmosphere. 



Mildew they regard as a disease which af- 

 fects the ear, though, in general, it is appar- 

 ently more injurious to the straw, and is pro- 

 duced by causes somewhat similar to those 

 which occasion blight, though at a more ad- 

 vanced period of the season. It usually first 

 attacks the leaf, and then the straw, just at 

 the time the grain is blooming; and wlien it 

 comes on immediately after the first appear- 

 ance of the ear, the straw will also be affect- 

 ed ; but if the grain be fully formed, then it 

 is but slightly discolored. 



There are many causes which probably 

 contribute to the production of this disease. 

 It is most likely induced by the peculiar state 

 of the atmosphere, during the periods of flow- 

 ing and ripening. This opinion appears to 

 be correct ; so tar as we are yet able to judge 

 of the peculiar cause. 



The Rev. Henry Colman, an eminent 

 agriculturist, and a careful observer of all 

 things connected with agriculture, and those 

 branches of science to whicli it is allied, has 



fiirnished the public, through some of the 

 early volumes of the New England Farmer, 

 a number of able and iiighly mstructive es- 

 says on the culture of wlieat ; and alter many 

 experiments, and careful and patient observa- 

 tion, he come to the conclusion (without, 

 however, assuming to decide the question) 

 that the disease was " atmospheric — occur- 

 ring at a particular state of the plant, which 

 rendered it peculiarly liable to blight or mil- 

 dew." 



One experiment detailed by Mr. Colman, 

 and which, no doubt, had considerable weight 

 in bringing him to the conclusion to which 

 he Ijas arrived, that the cause was most pro- 

 bably atmospheric, is too interesting to be 

 passed over. The following is Mr. Col- 

 man's account, as detailed in the " Complete 

 Farmer," for 1835, page 125. 



Three acres of winter wheat was sown on 

 some of the best land in the Deerfield, Mass. 

 meadows; the green sward was turned up in 

 the fall, rolled and harrowed, seed well soaked 

 in brine, limed, and sown on the 27th of Octo- 

 ber, at the rate of two bushels and a half to 

 the acre. One-half the field was highly ma- 

 nured — to the remainder no manure was ap- 

 plied. The seed came up finely, and nothing 

 could exceed the beauty and luxuriance of 

 the growth, most of the field averaging more 

 than five feet in height. 



Above half the field, including an equal 

 portion of the manured and that not manured, 

 was passed over twice in the spring, after the 

 grain had got to be six inches in height, with 

 a light harrow, drawn by one yoke of oxen, 

 and three weeks after was subject to the same 

 process. 



The effect of this was to destroy very few 

 of the plants, and to render the growth of 

 what remained much more luxuriant, produc- 

 ing such an increase of the stem, and such an 

 extension of the heads, as to attract the no- 

 tice of the most casual observer, and to in- 

 duce several persons who were ignorant of 

 the process to which it had been subjected, 

 to inquire for the cause of the difference in 

 the two parts of the field, and to ask if a dif- 

 ferent kmd of seed had been used. 



After all, however, to my extreme disap- 

 pointment, the whole field has been blasted, 

 and I shall hardly get back the amount of the 

 seed sown, and that in a small shrivelled 

 gram. The crop is housed, but wUl scarcely 

 repay the expense of threshing. 



Now that this result was not owing to the 

 use of stable dung is obvious, because none 

 was used. In that part of the field where the 

 blight appeared to commence, and to make 

 most rapid progress, no manure whatever 

 was used. 



It was not owing to the want of the specific 

 property in the soil, as far as that is to be 



