No. 9. 



On Mildew, Blight, or Rust. 



293 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 On MildeAV, Blight, or Kust. 



THE CAUSE AND REMEDY. 



Read before the Philadelphia Society for 

 Promoting Agriculture, by Col. Kender- 

 ton Smith, April 7th, 1841, when, on mo- 

 tion it was Resolved that the same be pub- 

 lished in the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Heat and moisture are two of the elements 

 of vegetable life. In the ab.sence of either 

 to a necessary extent, vegetation languishes 

 and dies. I have been led to believe that the 

 farmers of this region have not paid sufficient 

 attention to this subject in the cultivation of 

 their wheat crops; they have acquired the 

 habit of sowing grass-seed with their winter 

 grain, and this, I am led to believe, is the 

 cause of our having obtained, for several 

 years past, but indifferent crops. Their want 

 of success has been owing, in a great mea- 

 sure, to a disease called mildew, blight, or 

 rust, which attacks the crop within a few 

 days only of its maturity ; and the cause of 

 it has been a subject of speculation to our 

 most scientific agriculturists and philosophers. 

 Some say it is occasioned by the fogs that 

 prevail at the period of the ripening of the 

 grain ; some have attributed it to honey-dew 

 — and a variety of other causes have been as- 

 signed, but I have not yet heard any whicii I 

 consider satisfactory. Many remedies have 

 been suge:ested — amongst the latest, to sweep 

 the field with rope.s when the dew, or mois- 

 ture, is upon the grain, and to sow the field 

 of standing grain with lime or ashes. I beg 

 leave to offer my views, not only with regard 

 to the cause, but to propose a remedy. 



In the year 1838, I suggested to the Soci- 

 ety the expediency of inquiring into the ad- 

 vantage or disadvantage of cultivating grass 

 with winter grain, or of sowing grass-seed 

 upon land previously sown with wheat. I 

 did so, because, as I stated at the time, I had 

 observed that my wheat, in certain parts of 

 my field, where there was no grass, was of 

 excellent quality — whilst in other parts of the 

 same field, mildew prevailed, and the grain 

 was shrunken and worthless. I wanted some 

 one to account tor it, and invited the mem- 

 bers to inquire, whether wheat grown where 

 there was no grass was not generally good ; 

 and I then expressed the opinion, that the 

 grass being on the same land with the grain 

 was the cause of mildew, and that the rea- 

 son of our having defective crops resulted 

 from sowing grass-seed with our winter grain. 

 I was induced to think so, because the wiieat 

 of several fields which came under my obser- 

 vation during that season, and which had not 

 been sown with grass-seed, was goiid, the 

 straw bright, and the grain of excellent qual- 

 ity. I also remarked, that other fields which 

 were sown with grass-seed, and indeed the 



crop generally, throughout the country, was 

 greatly injured, and, in most instances, utterly 

 destroyed by mildew or rust. What appeared, 

 however, very remarkable was, that we heard 

 of excellent crops which iiad been raised ia 

 the very midst of this ruin and desolation. 



In the summer of 1838, I was appointed 

 by the Society one of a committee to exan>- 

 ine a reaping-machine, then recently invent- 

 ed. We visited the farm of Mr. John Fox, 

 of Oxford Township, Philadelphia county, 

 for the purpose, where the machine was put 

 in operation upon a field of about eight acres. 

 This grain was remarkably fine in all re- 

 spects : It was tall, and much of it was lodged, 

 yet the berry was perfectly filled, and th« 

 straw was in no respect touched with mildew. 

 There was no grass sown with this grain — 

 and I have since learned, that Mr. Fox and 

 his brother have, for many years, always 

 sown their wheat without grass, and that 

 their crops have been uniformly good. Ad- 

 joining this field was another in wheat, the 

 straw of which was tali, and the growth of 

 which had been apparently as vigorous, bat 

 the grain was shrunk and of little value. 

 This field was sown with timothy the previ- 

 ous fall, and with clover in the spring, and 

 the ground was covered with a thick and 

 healthy coat of these grasses. The soil, situ- 

 ation, and advantages of these lots for the 

 growth of wheat, were, to all appearance, 

 the same. There was another field of wheat 

 on the opposite side of Mr. Fox's field, and 

 only separated from it by a road, which wa^ 

 also utterly worthless from mildew. This 

 lot had also been sown with grass, and there 

 was a strong growth upon it. Here, liieu, 

 was a field of very superior wheat, situate 

 between two other fields, which were scarce- 

 ly worth cutting — upon land in as good con- 

 dition, as favourably situated, and likely to 

 be equally affected by any fog, honey-dew, 

 sudden shower, or abrupt sunshine, cultivat- 

 ed with equal skill, and under like circum- 

 stances, and the only imaginable or visible 

 difference that could have been pursued in 

 the cultivation of the crops, was, that the two 

 fields containing the bad grain were sown 

 with grass, whilst the field of good grain con- 

 tained none. Many farmers from the neigh- 

 bourhood being present, the committee in- 

 quired what was the state of the wheat crops 

 in that vicinity, and were informed that they 

 were generally much injured by mildew or 

 rust. Tliis injury to the grain was indeed 

 generally complained of throughout the state, 

 and I will here remark that the system of 

 sowing clover with wheat, in order to plough 

 it under the following season as a manure, 

 has grown into great favour with our farmers. 

 Upon inquiry I found, however, that grain of 

 an excellent quality was raised by some farm- 



