CHAPTER XI. 



FEEDING DOWN GROWING CROPS. 



Given early sowing and a favorable season, there is a decide 

 gain in feeding down the growing crops with sheep or light horned 

 stock. Sheep have golden feet on a farm, especially on light 

 loams, and to use the patent medicine vendor's jargon, " no farm is 

 complete without them." If the growing crops are well forward 

 the sheep may be put in early, with great advantage to the sheep 

 and the crop. A large flock that will get over the ground and the 

 crop quickly is to be preferred, but better a small flock than none 

 at all. Feeding down in a forward season prevents fungus diseases 

 attacking sickly straws, the lodging of the crop, and induces the 

 plants to stool out well, and give an increased yield. The sheep 

 should be put on in dry weather, and early enough in the season to 

 give the crop time to recover. With clean land, deep and thorough 

 cultivation, clean seed, early sowing, feeding down, spring harrow- 

 ing, and anything like a favorable season, the farmer is safe, and 

 may count himself happy. 



PICKLING SEED TO PREVENT SMUT. 



Seed grain before sowing is pickled, in a manner which will 

 be described, in order to prevent the plant when fruiting being 

 attacked by parasitic fungi, commonly known as bunt and smut. 

 Bunt is produced by a species of fungus called Tillcliii foctciiSj 

 which occupies the whole farinaceous portions of the grain of 

 wheat, and gives the ear a burnt appearance. Smut is caused by 

 the attack of a fungus belonging to the section Ustilaginece of the 

 Hypvdermice group. Smut shows itself first in the organs of 

 fructifaction, the epidermis of which is ruptured in a great number 

 of places, a black soot like dust then appearing through the slits. In 

 color and shape the smut fungus resembles the bunt, but its spores 

 are not so long, and it possesses none of the disgusting odor that 

 characterises the latter. 



Dr. Cobb, the vegetable pathologist of the Department of 

 Agriculture, New South Wales, says: "Loose smut first appears at 

 a time when the wheat comes into llo\ver, and this fact is in itself 

 almost a guarantee that this is the period at which it infests the 

 next crop. Bunt, on the other hand, does not break loose from its 

 ball-like enclosures until harvested and threshed. That is the 

 period at which it infests the crop, either through immediate con- 

 tact with healthy seed, or by being disseminated on the land so as 

 to infest the seed when sown." 



