On Sfnut in JFheaL 83 



1. Whether worms are not often found, at the roots 

 of healthy gram? 



2. Whether the smut ball consists of vegetable earthy 

 as Mr. Somerville supposes, or whether it is not rather 

 the milky substance of the infant grain, carbonized by 

 the heat of the sun, and converted into a kind of char- 

 coal? 



3. Whether sound wheat, on which no stable manure 



had been applied, be wholly exempt from the smut? 



4. As stable manure tends to infest green crops w^ith 

 insects and weeds, whether it may not be divested of 

 that property, by undergoing a previous putrefactive 

 fermentation, and afterwards, by being incorporated into 

 a compost, with an equal portion of quick lime, as has 

 been mentioned? 



Should smut be found, where no vestige of worms or 

 insects can be discovered by a powerful microscope ; or 

 mildew, without any trace of parasitical fungus, it will 

 afford reason to suspect, that these supposed causes of 

 the respective diseases, were rather the effects, or only 

 adventitious circumstances, and that a more close scru- 

 tiny will still be necessary, to afford complete satisfaction 

 to philosophers. For instances of mildew have been 

 noticed, where no stable manure had been used.* 



As the proposed methods of prevention are applica- 

 ble to both maladies, it now will rest with agriculturists 

 to determine the points in question, by attentive obser- 

 vation and accurate experiments, agreeably to what has 

 been suggested. For whatever may be the result, 

 truth ought to be the principal object of our researches. 



'5^ Board of Agriculture. Vol, 4. p. 399. 



