12 BLIGHTS IN THE CORN. 



times almost overwhelming. Their forms, 

 their sources, the principles upon which they 

 can by any possibilty aid in the economy of the 

 world seem alike, at first, undefinable. So do 

 their remedies. Masses of dark unwholesome 

 blights blast the growing plants in our corn- 

 fields, and infect our granaries. To the com- 

 mon observer they appear shapeless and dis- 

 gusting ; but the eye of science has penetrated 

 their secret nature, and beholds, in their exqui- 

 site organism, incredible reproductive power, 

 and, under circumstances of a peculiar kind, 

 uses. Besides, we have discovered methods of 

 checking their destructive extension. In the 

 rural districts, ignorance has given them all 

 sorts of grotesque designations without the 

 remotest conception of their generic characters, 

 properties, and antidotes. Even where the 

 last have been hit upon by chance, few that 

 use them know what they are contending with, 

 or the reasons of the methods they apply. 

 Nor have hundreds of tillers of the soil, when 

 they grieve over the withered grains of wheat 

 that spoil the sample and diminish the hoped- 

 for return, the least notion of the habits of the 

 little pests which have caused such deficiency. 

 Still less do they suppose that there are men 



