FARMERS REGISTER—GRAIN WORMS. 



281 



iuiigi are tlie real and only cause of this disease, it 

 will naturally occur to every one, that if the vital- 

 ity of the seeds of these parasites could cflectual- 

 ly be destroyed, the disease would be prevented. 

 That the steejjiug in lime-water destroys the vi- 

 tality, I have proved by many experiments; and 

 also that lime-water has the same eflect upon the 

 seeds of the uredo segetam, as it has upon those of 

 uredofatida. 



I fear that much difficulty will present itself to 

 the steeping the seed-corn effect ivel)', li-om the 

 structure of the seed of barley and oats, the ker- 

 nels of which are so tightly enclosed in the husks, 

 that the lime-water cannot so readily penetrate, 

 and reach the embryo, as in the naked seed-ker- 

 nels of wheat and rye; but if some ingenious and 

 unprejudiced practical agriculturist would make 

 experiments on a large scale, by which every 

 grain of the seed-corn could be edectually steeped 

 in lirile-Water, I have no doubt hut that the dis- 

 eases of the Smut or f>usi Brand, nnd the Smut 

 Balls or Pepper Brand, would be etfectually pre- 

 vented, and perhajis, aitcr repeating the experi- 

 ments tor a tew successive years, these diseases 

 might be entirely eradicated from the land. 



F. B. 



Kew, March 3, 1833. 



THE GRAIN woRjHS — Vibr'w Tritlci. 



The existence of this most extraordinary disease 

 in wheat has been, comparati\ely speaking, but a 

 very short time known; and it is only of a very re- 

 cent date that it has attracted the notice of the 

 practical agriculturists in this country. In July, 

 1807 I received, lor the first time, some growing 

 specimens of wheat-plants infected wit li this dis- 

 ease, from Kent, where it was said that the dis- 

 ease had existed some years, and, ii'om its spread- 

 ing, had attracted the notice of the farmers. They 

 distinguish it by the odd names of Ear- Cockles, or 

 Brown Purples, on account of the distorted 

 shapes and dark-brown color of the diseased 

 wheat-grains, Avhich bear some resemblance to a 

 weed generally growing in corn-fields, and vulgar- 

 ly called Corn- Cockles, or Purples, the jigrostema 

 Githago Linnseus. In Hampshire the disease is 

 called Burnt corn. 



From continued supplies of fresh specimens 

 from Kent, I have been enabled to ascertain many 

 important facts respecting the nature and proper- 

 ties of the minute animals engendering this disease. 

 These experiments and results were so far satis- 

 factory as to establish incontestably the fact, that 

 the white fibrous substances within the cavities of 

 the distorted grains consist of real organized ani- 

 mals, endowed with the extraordinary property of 

 having their power of motion suspended lor a con- 

 siderable length of time, and of having it again res- 

 tored by the mere application of water. But how 

 are these animals introduced into the cavities of the 

 young germens? And how are they propagated? 

 These were questions which I could not at first 

 answer,and I considered that these facts could 

 only be ascertained by tracing the worms from the 

 sowing of the seed-corn through the whole progress 

 ■ of the vegetation of the plant. 



Being fiilly con\anced that the worms or their 

 eggs, like the seed of the fungi of the pepper-brand 

 and dust-brand, must be absorbed by the germina- 

 ting seed-corn, and propelled by the circulating 



Vol, II.— 23 



sap into the young germens, and reflecting that I 

 had successtully inoculated the wheat-grains with 

 the fungij I determined to try tlie same experiment 

 with these worms; accordingly I selected a suf- 

 ficient number ol' souml wheat-grains, and ex- 

 tracting a small portion of the worms Irom the 

 cavities of the iidected grains, (which had been pre- 

 viously soaked in water about an hour,) and pla- 

 cing some in the grooves on the posterior sides of 

 the sound grains, I left them for some days to get 

 dfy, and planted them in the ground on the 7th of 

 October, 1807. At the same time I planted some 

 sound whcat-grainB in separate holes, about two 

 inches deep, and in each hole two or three inlJjcted 

 grains also. About the middle of November most 

 of the seeds had come up, and from time to time I 

 took some of these young plants tor examination, 

 but did not [:erceive any effect of the inoculatioii 

 till the 3rd of December, wheii; out of nine 

 plants, five proved to be inlccted with live worms. 

 In the first jjlant, after carefully splitting the young 

 plant from the root upwards, I found in the then 

 unorganized substances, between the radicle and 

 the plumula, three young worms very lively, but 

 not much larger than those with which the seed- 

 corn was inoculated; in another plant I found one 

 full-sized worm, but no eggs about it; in the third 

 plant I found a still larger worm than the last, but 

 in dividing the stem Iliad cut the worm in two, 

 and it soon died; it seemed to be full of eggs: in the 

 other two plants I found some worms quite young, 

 and some half grown; but on the other lour plants 

 the inoculation had no effect. The lact that, at such 

 an early stageof the vegetation of these inoculated 

 seed grains," such large worms were found, con- 

 firms my first supposition, that it requires several 

 generations of these worms to introduce their eggs 

 into the young germens; the large worms found in 

 the substance of the young stem were undoubted- 

 ly some of the original worms Avith which the 

 seed-corn was inoculated, for they were on the 

 point of laying their eggs in that stage, and these 

 eggs, being again propelled by the rising sap a 

 stage further, then come to maturity, and again 

 lay their eggs, and thus progressively reach tlie 

 elementary substance ol' the ear, where they are 

 finally deposited in the then fiirming germens; the 

 whole ]7rogress j-.robably requiring three or lour 

 such reproduclioiiSi 



(Mr. Bauer then describes many subsequent 

 examinations of infected ji'ants, referring to the 

 representations and descri])tions given. A detail- 

 ed account of the nature and j)roperties of these 

 worms was laid before the Royal Society, read on 

 the 5tli of December, 1822, and juiblished in the 

 "Philosophical Transactions" of 1823, under the 

 title of -'Microscoiiical Observations on the Sus- 

 pension of the Muscular JNlotions of the Vibrio 

 Tritici.") 



My experiments, for resuscitating the grain- 

 worms, I have repeated almost every succeeding 

 year to this day, and always with the same suc- 

 cess; but I find that the longer the specimens are 

 kept dry, the grains iTijuire to lay in water a great- 

 er length of time before the worms will recover; and 

 that, at every repetition of an experiment, a small- 

 er number of worms recover their motion, and that 

 after the same specimens (the produce of the 

 grains inoculated in 1807) had been kept dry six 

 fjears and one month, the worms were all really 

 dead; this period is the longest which I have a.s 



