190 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



with as great regularity as circumstances will permit. 

 Of late years, both the mildew of the vine and the 

 hop have been treated with flowers of sulphur. Dust- 

 ing the affected hop-leaves with sulphur certainly 

 arrests the mildew in an incredibly short time ; and 

 we found that by dusting sulphur from a fine sieve 

 on our cucumber plants, the disease was immediately 

 arrested in its progress. We therefore look upon this 

 as an invaluable remedy in these states of mildew, 

 whether occurring on the vine, the hop, the turnip, 

 the cucumber, or on other plants, as we have fre- 

 quently seen it in hothouses — a circumstance which 

 shows the near affinity of all those forms of epiphytes, 

 which, perhaps, after all, only vary with the variations 

 in the structure and economy of the different plants 

 on which they occur. 



13. O'idium abortifaciens (Ergot) ; Secale comutum 

 (Ergot of Rye). — The black horn-looking spur which 

 occurs in rye and other grasses was formerly looked 

 upon as a distinct fungus ; now, however, it is known 

 to be a diseased or malformed condition of the grain 

 or seed, resulting from an attack by an o'idium on 

 the immature seed. 



Most of the cereal and even the meadow grasses 

 are liable to attacks of ergot, which is increased by 

 cold damp fogs and a moist condition of the atmo- 

 sphere, the difference of the size of the spur being in 

 accordance with the size of the affected grass seed. 

 Thus, in rye we have seen spurs more than an inch 

 long, while in the cock's-foot grass it is seldom a 

 quarter of an inch. 



The ergot, as it occurs in the rye, is much used by 

 medical men in difficult cases of parturition ; and we 



