INSECT ATTACKS. 181 



with us, these instances are far more frequent; indeed, 

 cases have occurred, in certain seasons, where whole dis- 

 tricts have been well-nigh depopulated by this disease 

 infecting their bread-corn. In 1816, Germany furnished 

 sad evidences of its direful effects ; and history records 

 the fate of the garrison of Kustrin, at its siege in 1813, 

 when the city was provisioned with meal made from 

 diseased (ergoted) rye. Gangrene set in directly the sol- 

 diers consumed the meal, and the garrison was speedily 

 decimated the brave commandant, General Former, who 

 placed himself on the same rations with his men, barely 

 escaping with his life from the effects of this hidden enemy. 1 

 Every year we read in the foreign journals of fatal cases 

 deaths with fearful suffering arising from diseased grains 

 being ground up in the meal, and sold for human consump- 

 tion. This powerful agent, "ergot," possesses, however, 

 some redeeming properties in a medicinal point of view, and 

 thus, with ordinary care and precautions, may be made to 

 minister to the health and comfort of mankind, instead of 

 inflicting such disastrous and fatal injuries upon us as it 

 does when carelessly taken as an article of food. In both 

 human and veterinary pharmacy it is a most valuable 

 and effective remedy in certain cases, and is largely ad- 

 ministered by our most celebrated practitioners. 



The " insect" enemies to the rye plant are not so numer- 

 ous as those known to infest the other cereals. The "corn 

 saw-fly" (CepJius pygmceus) attacks rye in the same man- 

 ner as wheat (p. 78), by dividing the straw at the joints, 

 and thus stopping the circulation of the plant and arrest- 

 ing its further growth. On the Continent, in North Ger- 

 many, the worm-like larvse of a small fly called Oscinis 

 pumilionis, commit serious ravages on the crop. They 

 live in the heart of the young stems, checking effectually 

 the growth of the plant, and rendering the ears either 



* Cours d' Agriculture de Gasparin, vol. iii. p 689. 



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