14 



as they are very popular shrubs. They are occasionally met 

 with iii the woods, hedges, and coverts in the neighbourhood. 

 Messrs. Maiden first noticed blight on the barberry this year 

 about May i2th. On June i8th the cups were numerous, and in 

 an advanced condition, and the microscope showed the spores 

 being given off in large numbers. 



Mr. Shepheard reports that there are no barberry trees near 

 him. He has known instances in which a patch of mildew has 

 spread across part of a field, apparently taking its rise from a 

 barberry tree, and the attacked strip gradually narrowed as it got 

 farther from the tree, but he has never farmed land where bar- 

 berry trees have been in proximity. 



Experiences of former Seasons. 



Mr. Palmer, of Revell's Hall, Hertford, says, " We nearly 

 always have had some mildew in this neighbourhood, and it is 

 generally more prevalent in wet summers than in dry, but 

 this is not always the case. There is not any doubt that wheat 

 is best cut early when attacked by mildew, and it has always 

 been my practice to cut it, if possible, before it has become 

 black. There are two advantages in this : first, the straw 

 is more valuable ; second, the wheat is of better quality." 



Mr. Stratton, of the Duffryn, Monmouth, reports that mildew 

 generally attacks the wheat crops, especially when late sown. 

 Crops grown on land in a high state of cultivation are more 

 liable to it than any others ; also on lands lying low and damp 

 they are more often affected. Damp and sunless weather is 

 very conducive to the development of mildew. 



Mr. Clare Sewell Read has often had partial attacks of 

 mildew, which generally followed heavy top-dressings or thin- 

 planted wheats, especially from nitrate of soda, and frequently 

 the grain has been greatly injured ; but he never experienced 

 such an attack of mildew which so damaged the straw, and 

 spared the grain, as in the season of 1892. 



On Ossemly Manor Farm, near Lymington, Mr. Gibb 

 reports an attack in 1891, and writes: "Late-sown wheat 

 was attacked, early-sown escaping. Where backward wheat 

 is top-dressed with nitrate of soda, I have found it parti- 

 cularly liable to mildew; or wherever there be an excess 

 of nitrogen in the soil, from whatever cause, when rain in 

 June follows warm dry weather, an attack is almost certain. 

 White wheats, particularly the long -stra wed and delicate 

 varieties, are more subject to attack than red. I have found 

 the application of lime, where the soil is deficient in this 

 property, very beneficial, either in the form of hot lime, 

 gas lime, marl, chalk, or, latterly, basic slag. Superphosphate 

 sown with wheat on the black peaty soils adjoining the 

 New Forest will greatly lessen the chance of attack, and 

 increase the yield of grain, and give stiffer and better straw, 

 even when half the ordinary application of farmyard manure 

 has been withheld." 



