Mr. W. Jones on the Mildew in Wheat. 205 



I know that in the same parallel of latitude there as in Europe, though their win- 

 ters are much colder, yet iheir summers are much hotter, and the vegetation 

 quicker, as is known by the sudden transition from winter, and a country covered 

 with snow, to a beautiful verdure; for the spring there advances with a degree of 

 rapidity we are unacquainted with in Europe; besides, wheat from North America 

 has been already tried, and found not to answer well ; and the tropical wheals 

 have been also tried with no better success. We know that gardeners would 

 always wish to transplant fruit trees from poorer lands to better, as judicious 

 graziers (to reason from analogy with the animal creation), would procure lean 

 cattle from lands inferior to those on which they were to fatten them. 



It has been commonly said in this neighbourhood, that when wheat is mildewed, 

 it cannot be cut too soon •, but my own experience convinces me to the contrary; 

 and that the proper time depends on the progress it has made ; for it does not fol- 

 low of necessity the disease must be progressive : to prove that, it will be necessary 

 to prove also that the first cause must continue to operate, which is not the fact, 

 according to my observation ; because I have known the first attack slight, pene- 

 trating in a small degree only the outer bark, and without any increased injury for 

 many days, when it has appeared afresh on other parts of the stalk, and the parts 

 first affected were much more injured by the second, than the first attack, which I 

 conceive to have been rendered more porous, so as to retain more moisture, and 

 of course more susceptible of the effects of a second frost ; which accounts for the 

 more rapid progress it makes in the later than the earlier stages of the disease, 

 from the repeated attacks of the same cause penetrating more and more to the in- 

 side of the stalk, and so corroding it, that it cannot convey any more sap for the 

 necessary supply of the ear. As I had at times erred in letting it stand too long, 

 at others by cutting it too soon, in both cases reducing the weight of the Winchester 

 bushel to 51 lb. and 50 lb. and some so low as 48 lb. according to the degree of 

 injury in the same field, which shews that, in some cases, it would be improper to 

 cut the -whole of a field at the same time. This^reat deficiency in the weight, ex- 

 tended to quantity also, and determined me to observe very particularly the last 

 summer, the progress of the mildew, which was not so rapid as I had known it in 

 1804, and some other seasons; and in order to ascertain the most proper time to 

 cut it, I had some sheaves cut, and others pulled by the roots, for ten days succes- 



