supplement. AGRICULTURE AS PRACTISED IN BRITAIN. 1347 



ami sown with a crop. Any description of earth is useful, as tending to consolidate the moss, and to 

 facilitate its decomposition ; but, to obtain a good crop the first year, putrescent manure in a considerable 

 quantity is absolutely necessary. 



8334. After cultivation. " Manure of some sort being applied, almost any description of crops may be 

 had ; but potatoes are perhaps the best article to begin with ; 2d, wheat ; 3d, clover, without grass seeds ; 

 4th. oats. The rotation may be varied, so as to include almost every crop." 



8335. The preparation of coke or charcoal from peat or moss has been effected in different parts of 

 Scotland, and in Ireland, and the charcoal thus produced has been found superior to many kinds of coal 

 for smelting iron, and the use of smiths' forges. This arises from the total absence of all sulphuric 

 matter in the peat, which renders it almost equal to the charcoal of wood, to which it is well known the 

 Swedish iron owes its principal excellence. The charring of peat for use in smelting iron has been 

 strongly recommended as a means of giving employment to the labouring population. (See Brit Farm. 

 Mag., vol. v. p. 360.) 



8336. — 4982. Ripening corn. It is important. Dr. Madden observes, that the process of ripening after 

 the seed has filled, should be as rapid as possible. " When the ear first fills, it appears composed almost 

 entirely of a substance resembling milk ; in about a fortnight after this, if we again examine the crop, 

 we shall find the seed much more solid, the milky juice having hardened and consolidated, and the straw 

 having begun to wither, which it always does from the ground to the ear. At this period the straw will 

 be yellow for about a foot above the ground ; in another fortnight the crop will be perfectly ripe, that 

 is to say, the straw will be uniformly yellow up to the ear, and the chaff will be sufficiently loose to admit 

 of the grain being rubbed out by the hands. On examining the ear, the most perceptible difference 

 which has taken place since the last period is, that the skin has become much thicker and harder, while 

 the flour is diminished in quantity. Now this is the important point, viz., that the last change in the 

 seed is an increase of bran, and a relative diminution of flour, which chauge increases materially, ac- 

 cording to the length of time that elapses between the ripening and the harvesting of the crop." (Trans. 

 H. S.. vol. xiv. p. 628.) 



8337 — 4991. Diseases of Corn. Professor Henslow delivered a learned lecture on this subject, the 

 essence of which will be found in the Gard. Chron. 1841, p. 5. 



8338. The bunt fungus ( {.'redo caries Dec), called also smutballs and pepperbrand. may be described 

 as a powder occupying the interior of a grain of wheat, the only corn it attacks. The effects which alkaline 

 substances, such as potash, lime, &c., produce in destroying the smut, when seed or corn is dressed with 

 those substances, is supposed to be owing to their forming a soapy compound with the oil of the fungi, 

 which is then more easily detached from the surface of the corn, to which its natural greasiness makes it 

 adhere. 



8339. The smut or dust-brand ( {'redo segetum Dec.) is a fungus which differs from the last in wanting 

 its disgusting odour, and in escaping through the sides of the infected grain in the form of a sooty 

 powder. It rarely attacks wheat, but is a common enemy of oats and barley. The usual palliative of 

 this evil is steeping, as in the case of the bunt. 



8340. Rust ( {/redo rublgo Dec.) is a fungus resembling an orange powder, exuding from the inner 

 chaffscales, and forming yellow or brown spots and blotches on various parts of corn plants. In itself it 

 is a pest of comparatively small importance ; but Professor Henslow has made the very curious dis- 

 covery that it is the young of the mildew, the Puecini«graminum of botanists, which is so destructive when 

 it attacks the straw. He stated that these fungi are at first spherical, or nearly so, and then constitute 

 the {'redo or rust ; but by degrees the spheres lengthen, acquire a stalk, contract in the middle, and so 

 form the head of the Puccinia ; so that two supposed genera of botanists, {"redo and Puccinia, are un- 

 doubtedly the same species in different states of development. 



8341. Ergot was regarded as a monstrous state of the grain of rye, produced by the external action 

 of a minute fungus, which causes the grain to lengthen into a horn something like a cockspur. It is so 

 exceedingly oily that it will burn like an almond in the flame of a candle. The action of ergotised corn 

 has been ascertained to he highly deleterious, both to man and animals ; the latter, indeed, preferred 

 starvation to feeding upon it, even when mixed with good flour. A duck which had been led with ergot 

 mixed with flour, in the proportion (say) of 1 in 17, died in ten days, after having had the end of its 

 tongue rotted off, and drops of blackish blood oozing from its nostrils. A pig was poisoned in like manner 

 in twenty-three days; the ears and the flesh of the tail having rotted away, and the legs having mortified. 

 Fortunately we know little of this pest in England ; for it is equally fatal in its horrible effects upon 

 man. as has been amply proved in France. Draining is considered as the only known preventive of 

 ergot. 



8342. Ear cockles are produced by an animalcule called the Vibrio tritici, which may be compared to 

 the eels in paste on a small scale. They form a cottony mass in the interior of the grain, which, when 

 the latter is ground, will not pass through the cloth, but remain behind in the bran. Although this 

 creature is microscopically small when young, it is a giant at its full growth, becoming a quarter of an 

 inch long. Nevertheless, Mr. Bauer has calculated that 50,000 of the young might be contained in one 

 grain of wheat. Scalding water was mentioned as the most obvious remedy for these creatures. 



8343. The wheal midge (Cecidomyia tritici), millions and millions of which infest every wheat-field, is 

 hardly known by farmers to do them any wrong ; and yet, on an average, it destroys one-twentieth of a 

 crop, and may possibly destroy a great deal more. It appears in June, up to which time its chrysalis lies 

 amongst the chaff of the corn. When the corn is winnowed, the pupa? of the midge are driven forward with 

 the chaff from the winnowing machine, and fall before it within the space of about three yards. As wheat 

 chaff is always sifted before it is given to horses, and the pupae pass through the sieve with the dust, it 

 occurred t* Professor Henslow that if a wire gauze sieve were placed before the winnowing machine in a 

 sloping position, so as to allow the chaff to fall upon it. and then roll from it. the pupa" would pass through, 

 and might be taken with the dust in a tray placed below the sieve. (Gard. Chron. 1841, p. 5. 52 566. 815.) 



8344. Cure for smut. Steep in dunghill water, to which salt and saltpetre, or copperas, have been added, 

 so as to cause the water to bear an egg : steep the corn twelve hours, and afterwards dry it with slaked 

 lime, or dry turf ashes, and sow it as soon as possible. (Gard. Chron. 1841, p. 69.) 



8345 Smut effectually cured by scalding in boiling water for a few seconds, and then dipping in cold 

 water and drying with lime. Great care was taken that the water was boiling, and the wheat taken out 

 of the water as soon as completely wetted. (J. Ellis, Esq. of Banning in Kent, at the Februat y Meeting 

 of the Eyig/is/i Agricultural Society.) 



8346. Steeping seed wheat. Professor Henslow found, that steeping in sulphate of copper effectually 

 prevented disease, while it did not affect germination. (Gard. Chron. 1841, p. 815.) 



8347—4992. The advantages of cutting corn crops before they are dead ripe, that is, when the straw 

 immediately below the ear is just beginning to turn yellow, are thus summed up by Mr. Sheriff. — An 

 increased quantity of grain, greater security from the weather, improved quality of straw, and an 

 extension of the harvesting season. To these may be added, greater security against the effects of wind 

 and rain, either as affects the shedding, discoloration, or germinating of the grain. The colour of grain 

 which was not cut till it became dead ripe is generally of an opaque whitish hue ; while that which was 

 cut before it was dead ripe is transparent, and tinged with brown. The latter description of sample bear! 

 the highest price in most British markets. (Brit. Farm. Mag., vol. v. p. 23.) 



8348. The period at which corn crops ought to be reaped is best determined by examining the upper 

 grains of the spikes. The cereal grasses, like all monocotvledonous plants, ripen the seeds "ii the upper 

 extremity of their flowers, or even in the upper part of thei'r seed-vessels, in the case of plants with pods 

 containing many seeds : whereas dicotyledonous plants ripen their seeds equally throughout the -<•'!- 



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