104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Now, it seems to me that that little black spot, that will lie 

 in the ground year after year, let any crop of other vege- 

 tables be grown, manifests very much intelligence, and 

 knows that that year the farmer has planted onions where 

 before he has planted turnips and potatoes and carrots. 

 This black smut has taken no notice of the other crops, but 

 all at once it appears, and the question arises, whence that 

 intelligence. 



Dr. Sturgis. I should hardly call it a matter of intelli- 

 gence. It merely grows where it can. As the little seed- 

 ling onion bursts out from the seed and begins to push up 

 through the soil, the spores come in contact with it and 

 germinate, simply because it is the soil it needs for germina- 

 tion. The very contact with the onion tip is sufficient to 

 stimulate that onion smut spore into growth. It is not 

 intelligence, it is a matter of environment. It is bringing 

 together two organisms that can grow together. 



There is one way of getting around the onion smut spore. 

 It will only attack the onion seedling tip. Get the tip of 

 the onion above ground and it will grow in a bed of spores. 

 It is only through the delicate tip of the seedling that the 

 onion smut gets into the plant at all. If you can start the 

 seedlings in a greenhouse and transplant them to the field, 

 you will never see a sign of the smut. I have experimented, 

 as a means of demonstration to the onion growers of Con- 

 necticut, on the comparative results of planting onions by 

 seeds and seedlings. With transplanting you get rid of 

 thinning, the first weeding and the smut, and, instead of 

 having them of a small size and crowded in the rows, you get 

 big onions and get them three weeks earlier. The Connecti- 

 cut farmers laughed at me when I said they could get onions 

 three weeks earlier, with bigger bulbs and free from smut. 



Mr. Ware. I am very thankful that my remark has 

 brought out so much additional information. The smut 

 attacks the seed when first sprouted, as I understand it. 



Dr. Sturgis. Yes. It is only through the extremely 

 delicate tip of the onion that the spores can gain entrance. 



Mr. A. M. Lyman (of Montague). What causes the 

 colored spots in the apples ? 



Dr. Sturgis. I suppose you refer to the little brown 



