ERGOT. 231 



grown in the next parish to Wattisham. A very cursory 

 look into a sack of gleaned wheat then at the mill also 

 furnished Professor Henslow with three or four more 

 specimens. 



From our own experience we should say that ergot in 

 wheat is by no means uncommon, as we have generally 

 found it on searching. Our examples have always been 

 much smaller than the ergot of rye, and not much larger 

 than a grain of wheat. 



Our friend the Kev. Canon Du Port, M.A., of Mattis- 

 liall, Suffolk, writing in the Transactions of the Norfolk 

 and Norwich Naturalists' Society, vol. iii. p. 199, says a 

 considerable quantity of ergot was found among the 

 marshland wheats in the year 1879, in which the summer 

 was abnormally wet and sunless. 



It unfortunately happens that ergot is extremely 

 frequent on the common rye grass, Lolium perenne, L., a 

 valuable grass, never absent from pasture-land and always 

 present in permanent pastures. Professor Henry Tanner 

 states, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, No. xli., 1858, that he knew of a Shropshire 

 breeder who lost 1200 in three years from the preval- 

 ence of ergot in his fields. Ergotised grass is especially 

 damaging to animals at the time when the uterus is nearly 

 ready to exclude its contents. 



In some instances it is easy to sift ergot out of grain, 

 as the ergots are larger in size than the seeds ; but in other 

 instances, as in wheat, the ergots are often so similar in 

 size with the grain that hand picking is the only means 

 that can be used. As ergots are generally black, there 

 is no special difficulty in recognising them amongst 

 seeds. 



It is said that ergot is most abundant in ill -drained 

 positions, and that good draining materially lessens it. 

 When the grasses of pastures are ergotised it is well to 

 pass a sharp scythe over the top of the grass and remove 

 as far as possible the spikes, racemes, or panicles ; and 



