100 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



fungi appear to be everywhere dispersed through the at- 

 mosphere, ready to germinate wherever they may find a 

 dead or living subject in a condition suited to their at- 

 tacks. Common mouldiness, for instance, which so readily 

 forms on many substances in a moist situation, is the most 

 familiar example of the inconceivable numbers in which 

 the sporules of a minute fungus are everywhere diffused." 

 We are now prepared to detail briefly the various diseases 

 attacking wheat arising from the presence of fungi the 

 first of which we notice is, 



8. Rust. Of this disease the attacks of which cause 

 such extensive losses of the wheat crop that all the other 

 diseases are by some considered of comparatively little mo- 

 ment we take, as introductory to the more practical re- 

 marks in connection with it, the following from one of the 

 Agricultural Reports of the Government of the United 

 States from the pen of Mr. Lewis Bollman of Indiana. 

 The extract affords us some very interesting particulars re- 

 specting the history of this terrible scourge of the wheat 

 crop. "The oldest of our histories," says Mr. Bollman, 

 " the Bible, frequently alludes to it as common among the 

 Jews, and represented it as one of the punishments in- 

 flicted on that disobedient people. They were warned that 

 disobedience would be followed 'with blasting and with 

 mildew;' and when thus punished, the prophet Haggai 

 says: 'I smote you with blasting and with mildew, and 

 with hail, in all the labours of your hands ; yet ye turned 

 not to me, saith the Lord.' The Hebrew name for the 

 rust, yarcoon, meaning a yellow colour caused by moisture, 

 is indicative of the cause and appearance of the disease 

 then as we find them now. The Grecian and Roman 

 writers have transmitted to us like names and causes. 

 The Greeks called it erusitee, and the Romans rubigo. Ovid, 

 describing the rubigalia, a religious festival established by 

 one of the earliest rulers of Rome, makes the priest say, 

 ' If the sun fervently heats the moist stalks, then, dread 

 goddess, is the opportunity for thy dread wrath. Be mer- 

 ciful, I pray, and withhold thy rusting hands from the 



