ON THE ERGOT. 69 



beginning of the sixteenth century. The medicinal use of Ergot 

 is of much importance, and it is imported from France, Germany, 

 and America. The retail price varied formerly from 10s. to 20s. 

 per ounce, and, consequently, if a pound were collected from a 

 field of Rye it would have been worth more than the produce of the 

 sound grain. At the present time the price is probably not more 

 than Is. to Is. 6d. per ounce. The prevalence of this disease in 

 grasses is a serious matter to agriculturists, from the fact of its 

 acting as a poison on the animal economy. There is no doubt 

 that much widespread injury has been caused in dairy districts to 

 the cows from feeding in pastures where Ergot is prevalent. Yet 

 it is a source of danger whose existence in his fields the farmer is 

 most commonly quite ignorant of, and when it is pointed out to 

 him he seldom recognises its nature. It is in the months of 

 October and November, when the autumnal mists and damp 

 weather have set in, that this fungus is most widely developed. 

 We shall then find it in pastures where cattle have been grazing 

 during the summer, and where frequent spikes of Rye-grass and 

 others have been left from their having become dry and wiry, and 

 unpalatable for food. The Ergot will then make its appearance 

 as a black, horn-like growth, half an inch in length or there- 

 abouts, occupying the position of the matured pistil in a healthy 

 spikelet, and we may perhaps find as many as three of them on 

 each spike of the Rye-grass. It is just in such pastures, and in 

 badly kept roadsides and hedgerows, where the grasses have not 

 been properly eaten down, or cut and cleared away, that we 

 should look for this fungus. If the farmer were aware of its 

 existence, and of the danger which is likely to result to his dairy 

 cows from its presence, he would take the same steps for its 

 removal which he does in regard to docks and thistles, either by 

 passing his grass-cutting machine over the field, or by putting a 

 man to cut down all the rank patches with a scythe. 



The production of what is known as Honey Dew on various 

 plants is connected with the occurrence of some fungi, the Ergot 

 being one of them. The life history of the Ergot, which it would 



