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the support of the farmers of the country. In addi- 

 tion to our ordinary facilities, during tiic coming 

 spring wo shall attend tlie Grnit ff'orlds Fair, and 

 also make a tour of Great Britain and some portions 

 of the Continent ; and we iiope to be able to com- 

 municate many thiiijjs of value. It is our intention 

 to make tlie account of our travels at once interesting 

 and profitable to all our readers. We design to do 

 our part, and do it wulf,. It only ronuiins for our 

 friends to do their duty — to urge the claims of the 

 Gkneskk Farmkr ui)on the attention of tlieir neigh- 

 bors, to make our paper vvliat we intend it shall be — 

 llic most widely circulated, and the most useful agri- 

 cultural journal in tlie country. To accomplish this, 

 we shall spare neither money nor labor, and we ask 

 the hearty co-operation of our friends. The cost is 

 but trilling — every farmer and every farmers son can 

 afford to take the Farmer. 



PARASITIC FUNai OF THE FARM. 



This class of plants has given rise to more disputes 

 among practical farmers, than all others put together. 

 Availinsr ourselves of an admirable lecture by the 

 Rev. Edwi-n Sidnf.v on the " Parasitic Fungi of the 

 British Farm," published in a late number of the 

 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, with illus- 

 trations, we hope to make this subject plain to the 

 understanding of every reader. 



The word "parasitic" means something that lives 

 at the expense of another plant or animal. Parasitic 

 plants, however, can subsist on decaying or dead 

 veo^etables and animal substances, as toadstools grow 

 on a dung heap, and mould in cheese. 



Funffi is the plural of fungus, which is a cellular 

 plant, le., one whose juices circulate through innu- 

 merable little cells, the sides of which are pervious 

 to water, and not through vessels or minute tubes, 

 as in vascular plants. Fungi have ne flowers, live 

 partly on air, and are fartiier nourished through a 

 stalk, stem or spawn. Their minute seeds are called 

 spores or sporutes, which are never of a green color, 

 and arc either naked or enclosed in skinny cases, 

 termed sjioridia, or spore-casrs. 



Spores mostly germinate either by the protrusion 

 of the inner membrane, or by a lengthening of the 

 outer covering ; and the spaivn. is the development of 

 these spores, imparting to them the power of imbi- 

 bing nutriment from the matrix, and of growing. 

 The spawn of the common mushroom can be m.ade 

 to extend on glass in a way tn show its development 

 in a satisfactory manner. Fungals most commonly 

 grow on animal or vegetable substances in a stale of 

 decomposition ; but many of the simplest organiza- 

 tion attack tissues which to all appearance are sound 

 and healthy, and eventually destroy 

 them. 



The simplest^ form of a fungus is 

 common mouldiness, which has two 

 types. The first, as may be seen by 

 the aid of a good microscope, is com- 

 posed of jointed threads made up of 

 simple cells placed end to end, which 

 often separate and seem capable of 

 reproduction. This is represented in 

 Fig. 1, where the colls may be seen 

 *'**• as described. 



In the second form, the cells are less distinctly 

 marked, and assume a thread-like appearance, bearing 



^4^1 to/. 



spores at their extremities, and having numerous 

 short branches, as is shown in Fig. 2. The study 



of the cells of dif- 

 ferent plants is 

 exceedingly in- 

 teresting. We 

 have before us 

 the work of Mul- 

 der on the Chem- 

 istry of Vegeta- 

 ble and Animal 

 P h y s i o logy, in 

 which this sub- 

 ject is discussed 

 at length, with 

 much acuteness 

 and patient scien- 

 tific research. At 

 another time we 

 may copy some 

 of his admirable 

 drawings, finely 

 illustrating how 

 plant* and ani- 

 mals grow. 



Mould on stale 

 milk, and mildew 

 in damp clothes, 

 are among the 

 simplest forms of 

 vegetable life. In 

 a Jiigher state, 

 fungi takes a de- 

 terminate figure, 

 formed of a mass 

 of cellular tissue, 

 the entire centre 

 of which is all 

 spores, as in the 

 case of a common 

 puff-ball. The 

 most completely 

 formed fungi 

 have two distinct 

 surfaces, one of 

 which, (usually 

 the uppermost) is 

 smooth and without any opening ; the other like the 

 under side of a mushroo n. is divided into thin plates 

 called the hijmenium or gills, to which the spores are 

 attached, generally four to- 

 nether, as seen in Fig. 3. 

 i 'pon differences of structure 

 dt^pend the various attempts 

 :it botanical arrangement. 

 'IMiis class of plants is quite 

 numerous. 



The seeds or spores of 

 fungi arc so small and incal- 

 culable in number, that it is 

 diflicult to conceive a place 

 on the surface of the earth 

 where they may not be pres- 

 They have been not inaptly called "the scav- 

 engers of nature." Some fungi arc eatable, others 

 poisonous ; some medicinal, others into.xicating ; 

 and many are luminous, lighting up, by their phos- 

 phorus, tiie mines and caverns in which they grow. 

 The stems, leaves, and seeds of cereals ure much 

 subject to attacks from parasitic fungi, particularly 



Fig. 2. 



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