1848. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



177 



The Crisis of the Crops 



[From the L'sndoTi Pictorial Times.] 



The month which follows the longest day ex- 

 poses the cerealia, or corn bearing plants, to the 

 severest trial of the season. It is then the plants 

 flower, and it is necessary to fecundity that the 

 weather be warm, dry, and breezy. Such is 

 precisely the character of our present days; we 

 are passing the critical period auspiciously; the 

 fragile stamina of the wheat, the barley, the oat, 

 the rye, are swinging unperceived by careless 

 eyes in fruitful summer winds, and as they turn 

 their tiny bodies to the sun, burst in glittering 

 sprays of pollen, which as they descend are caught, 

 particle by particle, by the pistils, vivifying the 

 germ, and making the hope of a " merry harvest' 

 all but secure. The early rains gave the plants 

 strength and " bottom;'^ the present genial tem- 

 perature has drawn forth the flowers from the 

 chaff'-coverings of the ear, and the fresh enliven- 

 ing winds which we have enjoyed with it are 

 completing the work of fructification. The only 

 evil which remains to be dreaded is an attack 

 from one or more of the various species of smut 

 which attack corn plants. To put our country 

 friends upon their guard against them, and to 

 enable agriculturists to discriminate and 

 report any species which may appear, we 

 subjoin the following account of the whole 

 family : — 



These fungi are called uredines, the plural 

 of uredo, which is a term derived from the 

 Latin word uro, to burn, because the dis- 

 coloration of the parts of plants affected by 

 them produces a burnt appearance. The 

 uredines are chiefly found on the young or 

 old leaves of corn plants, and occasionally 

 on the stems; but in the last instance, it 

 has been surmised that the indications simi- 

 lar to uredo are only immature forms of 

 puccinia. 



Pistils and Germ of Wheat. 

 There is no stage of growth in which the wheat 

 plant is free from the attacks of the uredo. Early in 

 the spring it is found on the young blades ; and in the 

 year 1846 it was in such quantiiies in some districts, 

 that the lields looked yellow wilh it, and at one time 

 it produced much alarm. Later in the season it often 

 abounds in the glumes atid palejE of the ear, even 

 after the gram is formed. These yellow or orange 

 uredines are of two kinds. One of them, from the 

 oblong form of its pores, is called uredo liuearts ; the 

 Other uredo ruhigo, whose pores are nearly spherical. 

 Uredo ruhigo means red dust, and no name could 

 possibly convey a truer idea of its appearance. Both 



these uridines are closely allied to the rust on the leaves 

 of rose trees, called udeu rosce. Their color varies from 

 orange to a brownish hue, and they cause the ))nrts at- 

 tacked to look as if they were dusted wilh rustiness of 

 these colors. Tliey belong to the order coninmi/retes, or 

 dusty fungus. It is a rare thing to find any wheat field 

 altogether free from them at any season of the year. — 

 When the chaff scales are attacked, the .spots look like 

 patches of red gum. Hence red gum is sometimes given 

 it ; but it is most frequently known as red-robin, red-rust, 

 or red- rag. 



Flowers of Wheat Magnified. 

 The flower consists of two pistils and three anthers. 



Flower* of Wheat Enclosed in the Chnffy Covering 

 Future Grain. — (Magnified.) 



of the 



