RUST. 101 



crops.' In all times, and among every civilized people, 

 this disease existed, and a moist stalk heated by a hot sun 

 is the cause of it ; hence heavy dews, precipitated by clear, 

 cool nights, succeeded by a hot sun during the day, soon 

 develop the disease now as it did in the most ancient 

 periods. It was not until the microscope was invented that 

 the true nature of the disease was known. There is a 

 species of plant which lives on the sap of other plants, 

 called parasite. The rust and smut are plants of this 

 character. The microscope shows the fact that rust is a 

 perfectly formed plant, having roots, stems, and branches, 

 and producing seed too small for the unaided eye to dis- 

 cover. These exist in innumerable quantities in the at- 

 mosphere, awaiting the condition essential to their germi- 

 nation and development. What these are we have already 

 seen. In the language of Ovid, they are the sun fervently 

 beating on the moistened stalks. When this moisture 

 proceeds from showery weather, no danger need be appre- 

 hended; but when from dews precipitated by cool nights, 

 then the rust rapidly develops itself Whether the mois- 

 ture in drying so rapidly causes a contraction of the outer 

 portion of the stem so as to induce splitting, or whether 

 the coolness of the night causes it, is not certainly ascer- 

 tained. Be this as it may, the result is the same an im- 

 perceptible splitting of the straw through which the sap 

 oozes out. The invisible and multitudinous seeds of the 

 rust attach themselves to this sap, and burying themselves 

 in it, rapidly vegetate, striking their roots in the openings 

 of the straw, thus diverting to themselves the sap of the 

 plant, which should go to the filling out and ripening of 

 the grain. Hence it so rapidly shrivels, and often becomes 

 worthless. 



"What is the remedy against this evil? The Romans 

 sacrificed a red bitch on the altar of the goddess Eubigo, 

 the priest entreating her to withhold her rusting hands. If 

 the farmers could be persuaded to sacrifice all bitches to the 

 goddess, then an altar ought to be erected to her on every 

 farm, for the indirect benefit to the wheat crop by increased 



