636 



NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 



Nov. 



oranges, lemons and olives to the acre, are 

 sometimes realized ; on pine lands, with 

 proper attention, 200 barrels per acre. Wild 

 grapes, some of them very superior, hanging 

 in large heavy clu-^ters, both white and purple, 

 are abundant. The Bermuda arrow root 

 flourishes throughout southern Florida, pro- 

 ducing 200 or 300 bushels to the acre, yield- 

 ing, with very imperfect mills, six or eight 

 pounds of flour to the bushel, worth twenty- 

 five to thirty cents per pound. The country 

 is well adapted to the raising of horses and 

 mules. The climate affords perennial pasture, 

 and renders unnecessary expensive provision 

 of forage and stabling. As many of these 

 animals as might be required for the country, 

 could be raised to the age of three years, with- 

 out requiring the expenditure of as many 

 dollars. The healthfulness of these animals 

 in this section is notoiious. 



FUMQI, OB, SMUT. 



The farmer, in passing through his fields of 

 corn or wheat, has his attention often arrested 

 by ears of the grain which have undergone a 

 most singular metamorphosis or change. In 

 place of the sound kernels, he finds a huge 

 black excrescence, composed of what seems to 

 be an impalpable, sooty dust, which soils the 

 fingers and clothing when brought in contact 

 with it. This smut, or fungoid growth, is a 

 very remarkable production, and, regarded 

 from every point of view, seems to be devoid 

 of all use — a thing to be hated — an abomina- 

 tion. The mass of sooty dust is a regular 

 plant, of most singular and" complex structure, 

 and possessing a reproductive power hardly 

 excelled by any vegetable or animal organism. 

 As though the chances of the hateful thing for 

 multiplying itself were not great enough with 

 ordinary organs, it has conferred upon it three 

 or four different modifications of the function. 

 They may multiply themselves by means of 

 the spawn, or mycelium, by self-division or 

 lamination, which may be regarded as a spe- 

 cies of germination, or they may be propa- 

 gated by seeds or their equivalents, produced 

 in special receptacles. Every cell or tissue 

 may contain its germs, and each germ springs 

 up into new forms, equally fitted for propaga- 

 tion, in a lew hours or minutes. While exam- 

 ining some of the cells under the microscope, 

 they are observed to pass through the course 

 of their existence, and give birth to housands 

 of new organisms. 



The number of germs or other reproduc- 

 tive bodies which parasitic fungi produce, is 

 incalculable — almost infmite. One grain in 

 weight of (he black matter found in place of 

 the ear of corn, contains upwards of Jour 

 millions of spores'or seed vessels, which are 

 again filled with sporules so minute that the 

 highest powers of the microscope fail to dis- 

 tinguish them, 



Doubtless the reader, if familiar with farm- 



work, and a keen-sighted observer, has often 

 seen a kind of ethereal smoke or evaporation 

 proceeding from the diseased heads of grain, 

 when moved by a single breeze. This appar- 

 ent vapor is formed of the millions upon mil- 

 lions of the seeds of the fungi, which, pro- 

 ceeding from the ruptured vessels, float like 

 an airy cloud or gossamer veil, whither the 

 winds may drive them. The atmosphere is 

 loaded with these gerois in the latter days of 

 summer ; and, if it were not for a wis-e pro- 

 vision connected with their fructification and 

 growth, fungus, or mildew, would spread over 

 the vegetable world like a pall of death. 

 Nothing but fire or strong acids seems compe- 

 tent to destroy the seeds, so tenacious are they 

 of vitality. Summer's heat nor winter's frost 

 cannot kill, nor water drown them. 



Fortunate indeed is it, that they require pe- 

 culiar atmospheric and other conditions for 

 their growth. If these are not favorable, they 

 will not spread nor develop themselves. Some 

 seasons are peculiarly suited to the av/akening 

 of the dormant seeds which rest upon every- 

 thing, although entirely invisible to the naked 

 eye. Last year, the fungus peculiar to the 

 grape, called mildew, manifested itself to a 

 learful extent in many sections of the country, 

 causing great loss. Sometimes the wheat crop 

 is cut off" by the fungoid growths called rust ; 

 and, occasionally, all vegetable substances 

 suff;;r from the rapid fructification of these 

 strange parasitic plants. 



Sulphurous acid destroys the germs ; and 

 this we secure by the application of sul[)hur to 

 leaves and fruits before the pest fairly mani- 

 fests itself. Under cover, in glass structures, 

 it can be completely mastered by proper care ; 

 but, out of doors, the ruin can hardly be 

 averted. — Dr. Nichols'' Journal of Chemistry. 



BOTS TN HORSES AGAIN. 



I see in the last number of the Homestead, 

 an article copied from the correspondence of 

 the New England Fau:mer, taking the ground 

 that the bots in horses are very injurious to the 

 horse, causing death. But the writer is entire- 

 ly mistaken in his conclusions on the subject. 



From many investigations into the subject, 

 and from the testimony of Youatt, Spooner, 

 Stewart, Dadd, and others, I am perfectly sat- 

 isfied that the bots never turn upon the stom- 

 ach until it is so diseased that death is certain. 



The stomach of the horse is the cho^en home 

 of the bots, and why should they try to make 

 a way out of it, until the appointed time.^ lie 

 does not feed upon the stomach, but upon the 

 chyme, and only turns upon the stomach to 

 escape death. Nine out of ten of the horses 

 whose stomachs we have examined, have con- 

 tained bots. Some of those horses had been 

 killed by accident, while in perfect liealth. 

 We have found the bots eating tinough the 

 stomachs of those horses, within three or four 

 hours after death, although they were perfectly 



