1838.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



743 



forever? Should this work be executed, the per- 

 sonal communication between the north and south 

 Would instantly become unprecedented in the Uni- 

 . ted States; Louisville and Augusta would be 

 brought into social intercourse; Cincinnati and 

 Charleston be neighbors; and parties of pleasure 

 Btart Prom the banks of the Savannah for those of 

 the Ohio river. The people of the two great valleys 

 would, in the summer, meet in the intervening 

 mountain region of North Carolina and Tennes- 

 see, one of the most delightful climates in the Uni- 

 ted States; exchange their opinions, compare their 

 sentiments, and blend their feelings — the north 

 and the south would, in fact, shake hands with 

 each other, yield up their social and political hos- 

 tility, pledge themselves to common national in- 

 terests and part as friends and brethren. 



Finally, the immense summer throng of visitors 

 which annually go up to the north, along the sea 

 board, would be made still greater, and turning 

 westwardly through the states of Virginia, Ma- 

 ryland, Pennsylvania and New York, spread over 

 the northern centre of the United States, to the 

 shores of the lakes and upper Mississippi; concen- 

 trating on their return in the valley of the Ohio; 

 having seen what they now never see and made 

 acquaintance with what at present is unknown to 

 them, the very heart of the Republic. On the 

 other hand, the people of the north would, in au- 

 tumn and winter, pour down upon the temperate 

 plains of the south, in turn, studying their politi- 

 cal, civil, and literary institutions, participating in 

 their warm hospitality, catching a glow of south- 

 ern feeling, gratifying their curiosity, and return 

 enlarged in their patriotism and enriched in their 

 knowledge of our common country. Thus this 

 travelling, alone, would, at no distant day, reim- 

 burse the expenditures by which it be created, might 

 while it would unite with the ties of business, in 

 confining with a new girdle, states which are now 

 but loosely connected, and thereby contribute pow- 

 erfully to the perpetuity and happinesss of the 

 union. 



DANL. DRAKE, 



T. W. BAKEWELL, 



JNO. S. WILLIAMS, 



Cincinati, dug. 15, 1835. 



Committee. 



NEW EXPERIMENTS ON THE MEANS OF PRE- 

 SERVING WHEAT FROM THE SMUT. 



BY M. MATHIEU DE BOMBASLE. 



Translated for the Farmers' Register, from the Annate* de V- 

 Jlgriculture Francui e. 



I commenced in the fall of 1831, a series of ex- 

 periments having for their object to investigate the 

 best means of preserving wheat from the smut, 

 which often causes to agriculturists very considera- 

 ble losses in their harvests, and besides injures the 

 product so as greatly to diminish its value. I have 

 continued these researches during four years, sub- 

 jecting to my experiments the means, till now re- 

 garded as most efficacious, together with a great 

 number of others. Each year, I devoted myself 

 to new trials with the design to settle some doubts 

 which the results of my former experiments left in 

 n\y mind. I have at length come to a conclusion 



which I may consider as perfectly satisfactory, and 

 I may announce that hereafter it will be easy ibr 

 all cultivators to obtain with certainty, by the aid 

 of very simple means, crops of wheat entirely free 

 from smut; I have already published some details 

 relative to my experiments Of the two first yearsj 

 and I shall now give an account of those, the re- 

 sults of which have been established by the har- 

 vests of 1834 and 1835. I shall precede this 

 statement by a summary of the experiments of the 

 two former years. 



The most remarkable results of my first years' 

 experiments observed in the crop of 1832, were 

 these: lime and common salt employed separate- 

 ly offer very inefficient preservatives; but by com- 

 bining these two substances in certain proportions, 

 we obtain an action much more powerful for the 

 destruction of the germs of smut; and this action 

 is greatly superior to that of sulphate of copper, 

 or blue vitriol, whether employed alone, or in com- 

 bination with common salt, as is often practised. 

 The sulphate of copper had been considered till 

 then, according to the experiments of M. Bene- 

 dic Prevot, as the most powerful agent that could 

 be opposed to this disease of wheat; and it was 

 already an important gain to have discovered a 

 more efficacious action in substances that may be 

 placed without danger, in the hands of the agri- 

 cultural population; for when we are aware of the 

 heedlessness which attends all their operations, we 

 cannot but be alarmed at seeing farm servants 

 handle in considerable quantities, a substance so 

 poisonous as sulphate of copper. 



Besides lime, the sulphate of copper and com- 

 mon salt, I subjected to my experiments in this 

 year, potash, the sulphate of iron, and sulphureous 

 acid; employing these various substances either 

 separate, or combined with each other in different 

 manners, and indifferent quantities. Many of these 

 preparations were completely inefficacious; some of 

 them were more or lessinjuriousto the germinating 

 faculty of the wheat itself — and for those which 

 showed some power as preservatives from smut, it 

 had been necessary to employ the process of steep- 

 ng, to obtain a somewhat efficient action of the pre- 

 servative agents; that is, it had been necessary to 

 immerse the grain in the solutions of the different 

 substances, and to let it remain there in maceration 

 a longer or shorter time. It has been long known 

 that this plan gives oreat effect to the preservative 

 agents, and Arthur Young considejed it necessary, 

 irom the result of his experiments, to let the grain 

 remain lor twenty-four hours in water, impregna- 

 ted with lime. Air. Bosc, in the article Carie, in 

 the new ' Cours complet (T agriculture,'' presents the 

 same indication from the result of the experiments 

 of M. Tessier. I will observe here, that in the same 

 article, this author, proceeding by theoretical anal- 

 ogy, attributes to potash a preservative laculty as 

 powerful as to lime, while, according to my expe- 

 riments, carbonated potash, as it is found in com- 

 merce, exerts no action whatever on the smut. In 

 the same manner M. Bosc, relying upon the theo- 

 ry, prescribes, as superfluous, the mixture of com- 

 mon salt, or of any other salt with the lime; 

 Whereas the facts prove that this mixture exerts an 

 action incomparably more powerful than either of 

 the substances taken separately. So true it is, 

 that, in every thing that relates to organized bo- 

 dies, the facts themselvs must be consulted, and 

 not scientific theories or analogies. 



