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0« Smut in Wheat, By William Young, of Brandt/- 



zvine, Delaware, 



Read October 14th, 1806. 



I herewith send a sample of wheat, which produced 

 a considerable quantity of ears filled with smut balls, 

 in place of grain. The seed from which it was raised 

 w*as procured in this neighbourhood last October, and 

 had been sown for four years, on the same farm, and 

 deemed of the best quality. In the harvest of 1805 for 

 the first time, a mixture of smut was observed. It was 

 not however to that extent, as to be considered deep- 

 ly injurious to the grain, which was of course sown upon 

 several farms, and upon different fields in the same 

 farm, from September to December, under various as- 

 pects, and in every situation, it produced a considerable 

 proportion of smut balls in the harvest of the present 

 year. I had part of two fields sown with it ; the one a 

 south, the other a north aspect. Carolina white, Virgi- 

 nia eai'ly, and red chaff bearded wheat were contiguous 

 in the respective fields. There was not a ball of smut 

 found, except that from which the sample is sent. Nor 

 was it found on any of the other farms, except ^vhen the 

 heed was sown from the same stock. And even the 

 bame species of wheat, procured from another farm, 

 and sown on one of my fields, produced no smut balls. 



The farinaceous part of the grain, unto which the 

 smut adhered, was perfectly pure, after the smut was 

 removed at the barley mill. 



It is evident, that the seed produced in 1805 was in- 

 fected, bv a kind of hereditarv disease, occasioned bv 



