CHAPTEE XXX. 



BUNT OF WHEAT. 



Tilletia Caries, Tul. 



THE disease of wheat generally known as bunt is recog- 

 nised in some districts as pepper - brand, smut balls, 

 bladder - brand, stinking -smut, stinking -rust, and even 

 smut. Its ravages are almost confined to cultivated 

 wheat ; it rarely occurs on barley. A distinct species 

 occurs on wheat in the United States. The scientific 

 name of the fungus which causes bunt in wheat is Tilletia 

 Caries, Tul. Tilletia is named after Matthieu Tillet, who 

 wrote the Dissertation sur la cause qui corrompt et qui 

 noiriet les grains de bldd dans les e'pis, Bordeaux, 1755, and 

 a similar work published in Paris in 1755. Caries means 

 rottenness or decay. The meaning of the popular name, 

 bunt, is very obscure. We have the word bunter, which 

 means an offensive person (woman), and the verb bunt, to 

 swell ; the former may be a cognate derivative. Dr. 

 Murray of Mill Hill informs us that the word bunt is 

 used, for a fungus in the same way as touchwood, by 

 writers of the seventeenth century. This is perhaps the 

 most likely origin. The cavity or belly of a sail is called 

 the bunt, and the material of the sail bunting. The 

 bellying part of a seine-net is also called the bunt, which 

 name may have been transferred to the blight in reference 

 to its fishy smell. Bunt may be a corruption of burnt. 



In the fields it is difficult without experience to dis- 

 tinguish bunted from sound wheat ; there is very little 

 indeed to indicate the presence of the hidden foe ; this 

 is why the disease is so dreaded by farmers. As in 



