850. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



255 



ossibly heat ; thresh it when you please, clean it 

 reW, and screen out all the little kernels — save none 

 ut the best : and I will warrant you will have no 

 mut. You may sow early or late, wet or dry, on 

 ny land you please, and J. H. H.'s bug will starve. 

 Now, THE CAUSE OF SMUT. Farmers generally are 

 n a hurry when mowing commences, and will try to 

 :et as much of the clover and lodged grass mowed 

 s they can before harvest, and put it into the mow, 

 (lany times too damp. Then when harvest comes 

 n, they are in a hurry to get their grain cut and 

 rawn in, and very often draw it in rather damp, and 

 now it right on the hay. Then it becomes heated, 

 ,nd the top of the mow is heated as much, perhaps, 

 .s any part. Most likely they will then take off of 

 he top of the mow, and thresh for seed. This wheat, 

 ir any that has been heated, will produce smut ac- 

 •ording to the amount that it has been heated. If 

 here is any smut in the mow, you are sure to have 

 lome smut. A certain man in my neighborhood, 

 ibout ten years ago, had a fallow of about seven 

 icres. He saved his seed, and stacked it when pret- 

 y green, and it heated. He sowed the whole piece 

 ,vith the wheat that had been heated, except a small 

 jortion which he sowed with one and a half bushels 

 ,liat he got of me. When the wheat was grown, 

 ;hat part sown with his seed was at least one-third 

 ;mut, while not a head of smut could be found on 

 Jiat sown with the seed procured of me. It was all 

 sown the same day. C. C.—Starkey, JV.Y., 1850. 



WANTED, A LITTLE MORE EXPLANATION ABOUT 

 "SMUT BUGS." 



Messrs. Editors: — I have been highly pleased and 

 interested in perusing the various arguments adduced 

 in regard to smut in wheat and the cause of it. The 

 tTulh is, or ought to be, what all are searching for ; 

 and can the true cause be found, and satisfactorily 

 explained to the world, a very important mystery (to 

 wheat-growers, at least,) will be solved. It is a 

 subject upon which I have bestowed much thought, 

 and made considerable search and much inqury for 

 the cause ; but I am as yet in total darkness in re- 

 gard to it, so far as my own personal views are con- 

 cerned. Neither do I believe any of your covres- 

 pondents who have spoken on this subject, to be on 

 the right track. Mr. J. H. H. has considerable to 1 

 say ; and as I believe him to be a matter-of-fact sort 

 of a man, and his argument the only one worth ex- 

 amining, I am sorry to disagree with it: but not- 

 withstanding his veracity, and firm belief in his own 

 theory, I am, from the following facts, compelled to 

 believe it all a "hum-bug," instead of smut bug. 



In 1845, my spring wheat was very smutty, and 

 was getting worse every year. In 1846, 1 thouglit I 

 would, for experiment, get a new kind of seed ; and 

 accordingly I obtained a bushel of the Italian, as that 

 was said to produce well. I sowed three acres — 

 two and a quarter acres with the old kind, after 

 washing it with strong brine, (as that was the last 

 prevention I had then heard of,) and three quarters 

 of an acre with unwashed Italian. When ripe, I 

 found, as usual, the old kind about one-tenth smut : 

 while the Italian, though standing side by side, and 

 the adjoining edges intermingled by dragging, was 

 entirely free from it. I could find smut heads of the 

 old kind, several feet from the line, among the Italian. 

 I could also find heads of the latter among tlie old 

 kind ; but, after a long and close examination, was 



compelled to give up, without finding a single head 

 of the Italian smutted. Since then, I have, in two 

 different fields, sowed the Black Sea wheat beside 

 another kind, on the same day, and ..arvested them 

 the same day, finding the Black Sea free from smut, 

 while the other was scarcely more tl;an three-fourths 

 good wheat. 



One more fact, and I will leave the " groui;d." A 

 friend of mine, three or four years ago, prepared a 

 piece of eight acres for winter wheat, lie sowed 

 and dragged in four acres. It then commenced rain- 

 ing, which prevented sowing the other four acres 

 until two weeks later, when it was also sowed with 

 the same kind of wheat, threshed and cleaned at the 

 same time. When harvested, the part of the field 

 first sowed was found to be very clean, nice wheat ; 

 while the last was shrunken and very smutty. 



Now, if smut is caused by a bug, I should like to 

 have Mr. J. H. H. explain why they were not, in the 

 first cases, as likely to crawl up the stalks of the 

 Italian or the Black Sea, as of the other ; and in the 

 last case, I would respectfully ask what possessed all 

 the "bugs" to leave that part of the field first sowed, 

 and attack the other half so voraciously ? 



As I know not the cause of smut, (as I stated be- 

 fore,) I know of no preventive that is sure in all 

 cases. All I can say, therefore, is that the most 

 successful course with me, is to sow seed that is as 

 free from smut as possible, if not entirely, and change 

 the seed as often as every third year : that is, change 

 with some of your neighbors or friends, for some 

 that grew on a different soil from that you intend to 

 crop. D. A. C.—Drydcn Hill, J\'.Y., Stpl., 1850. 



TO PKE7ENT SMUT. 



Messrs. Editors : — I will give you my experience 

 in preventing smut. About twelve years ago, on my 

 farm in Brighton, I raised a field of wheat of about 

 five acres, which was so smutty thr.t I thought it 

 would not pay for threshing ; so I fed it out. But, 

 as a matter of experiment, I threshed enough to sow 

 the same field again. I soaked it all night in water 

 strong with salt, and stirred it up and skimmed off 

 all the smut and shrunk wheal that rose to the top. 

 In the morning I rolled it in fresh slaked lime, and 

 sowed it on the same field v.here it had grown ; and 

 I did not discover a head of smut in the fieW. I was 

 much troubled with smut before this, having to wash 

 most of my wheat before grinding ; but since I have 

 pursued this course, I scarcely ever see a head of 

 smut in my fields. My neighbor, Matuew Dryer, 

 was troubled in the same way — pursued the same 

 course for two or three years — and got rid of the 

 smut. These are facts, and important facts for tlie 

 farmer. Tlie question whether smut is caused by a 

 " bug," or by some other cause, although a very in- 

 teresting subject of inquiry to the curious, is of very 

 little practical consequence as long as we know an 

 effectual remedy, easily applied, and within the reach 

 of all. I should of course prefer to sow clean wheat, 

 if I could procure it readily; but I should sow smutty 

 wheat that had been limed and brined in the way I 

 have mentioned, with perfect confidence that the 

 vitality of the smut had been destroyed, and that its 

 effects would not be seen in the ne.\t crop. This 

 confidence has been gained by my own experience, 

 and my observation of its success among my neigh- 

 bors. I had tried various remedies previous to this. 

 Hiram RoBBiys.— Brighton, A\ Y., 1850. 



