Siiiikiiig Snint or Ihiiit in Wheat. 8i 



Diseases produced in Animals. 



The disastrous effect upon the crop is not the only thing to be considered, 

 for the smut possesses poisonous properties which render the flour contami- 

 nated with it dangerous to human beings and the straw or chaff eaten by 

 cattle is also injurious. In seasons when this disease of wheat is prevalent, 

 owing to the seed-wheat not being treated properly, there is a good deal of the 

 chaff given to cattle and horses. Tubeuf^ referring to this particular smut, 

 remarks — " The symptoms in the few cases of disease observed do not agree 

 very closely. A paralyzing effect on the centres of deglutition and the spinal 

 cord seems to be regularly present. As a result, one generally finds a con- 

 tinuous chewing movement of the jaws, and a flow of saliva, also lameness, 

 staggering, and falling. Cattle, sheep, swine, and horses are all liable to 

 attack." 



More recently, Giissow^ in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England, has been writing in a similar strain. " The smut fungi {Ustila- 

 gineae) of our cereals and grasses, especially the fungus known as bunt {Tilletia 

 caries Tul.) have proved extremely dangerous to animals of the farm. After 

 feeding on hay which contains the spores of these fungi (often in enormous 

 masses so that they form clouds of black dust when the grain passes through 

 the machine), inflammation of the niucous membrane, laboured action of 

 chewing, flow of saliva, and occasional abortion have resulted." 



Accordincr to Smithy fowls have been fed with bunted wheat without any 

 bad result, but that is not our experience here. At a poultry farm near Mel- 

 bourne, carrying 650 Leghorns, about the beginning of March, the egg yield 

 dropped in a few days from an average of 100 to 16, and that without any 

 apparent cause, the fowls being given the usual feed with a good supply of 

 meat. The wheat was examined and found to be smutty, and it M^as further 

 found that the egg yield began to drop from the time this particular line of 

 wheat was used. The use of the smutty wheat was at once stopped and now, 

 at the end of March, barley, with a fresh line of clean wheat, has been tried, 

 with the result that the egg yield has begun to improve and is steadily mount- 

 ing up. At the end of three weeks, after the use of smutty wheat had been 

 discontinued, the average yield of eggs had reached 80 per day. The smut in 

 the wheat w^as the only cause that could be assigned for the unprecedented 

 drop in the egg yield, as in every other respect the feeding was the same as 

 usual and the weather was good at the time. In some cases, fowls have 

 refused to eat badly smutted wheat, after being fed on it for several days, 

 preferring an empty crop. Other poultry-keepers have had similar 

 experiences of the injurious effects of feeding their birds on snuitty 

 wheat. 



Experiments were also conducted with pigeons, to see the effect of feeding 

 with clean as compared with smutty wheat. They were kept under exactly 

 the same conditions for twenty-two weeks, the only difference being that the 

 one pair was regularly fed with clean wheat, while the other had a particu- 

 larly bad sample of smutty wheat. During that period seven eggs were laid 

 as the result of feeding with clean wheat, while the other, fed on smutty wheat, 

 only produced two eggs. Both pairs were in good plumage at the start, but 

 at the end one pair retained their lovely plumage, and were in good condition 

 and fat, while the other \)Vi\x were in poor condition, and the feathers all 

 standing up. The mouth inside was quite black froni the smutty wheat, and 

 there was a danger of disease being produced in time, such as cancer in the 

 throat. Experiments with a single pair of pigeons are too hmited in their 

 scope to aUow of final deductions being drawn. But it may be noted that 

 the pigeon fancier, from whom the birds were received and to whom they were 



