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On the disease in wheat called Stunt. By Thomas 

 Plater, Esq. 



Read December, 1816. 



Georgetown, Dist. Col. Nov. 21, 1816. 

 Dear Sir, 



When I had the pleasure of seeing you in 

 Philadelphia, you expressed a wish 1 would communi- 

 cate the information I possessed relative to that destruc- 

 tive enemy to agricultural interests, the sedge wheat. I 

 shall state briefly the matter of fact arising out of my own 

 experience ; thereby shewing the success which has at- 

 tended me in its removal : it not being my intention to 

 investigate the nature of the disease, which appears to 

 have admitted of a variety of opinions, without a remedy. 

 My farm, situated on the waters of the Potowmack in 

 Maryland, is comprised of about 900 acres of low fertile 

 land, containing four divisions : the system of agriculture 

 pursued has been corn and wheat in regular rotation, the 

 pasture fields always in clover. In the autumn of 1808, 

 I procured 100 bushels of red lam mas, or what is called 

 here red straw wheat, which was sown that season 

 from the first to the middle of October, having none 

 other on my farm ; it succeeded fully to my wishes, the 

 three first years producing the best crops J had ever ta- 

 ken ; the fourth year, in the richest parts of the field 

 which had been manured, I discovered an acre or two, 

 whereon there was an entire cessation of growth, after it 

 had got rather more than a foot high, standing in bunches 

 resembling broom sedge. Unable to account for it, I 



