214 



MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Fig. 55a. 1. Sprouting Grass Smut (Ustilago panici-miliacei) showing large swelling in 

 upper part of plant. C. M. King. 2. Millet smut (.Ustilago Crameri). a, spores; b, glumes 

 of millet grains filled with a powdery mass of spores. C. M. King. 3. Kernel of smut 

 corn (Ustilago Fischeri) on maize. Spores at right. Below a sectional view of an affected 

 kernel. Pammel and King. 



cattle. The experiments made by Moore also indicate, as do those of Smith, 

 that smut is not injurious. 



Beginning on the morning of January 17, 1894, and continuing until noon 

 of February 2 (sixteen and one-half days), the heifers were fed morning and 

 evening from two to three quarts of a mixture of equal parts by weight of cut 

 hay and a mixture of corn meal, middlings and wheat bran, and sixteen quarts 

 of smut. No injurious affects were observed by Moore. It seems reasonable 

 to conclude from these experiments that under proper conditions corn smut is 

 not injurious. In our experience no cases have ever been reported to us where 

 cattle were supposed to have died from eating corn smut. 



Professors Veranus A. Moore and Theobald Smith after making an ex- 

 haustive investigation of the so-called corn stalk disease, came to the conclusion 

 that "corn smut is probably not very poisonous, but when fed in considerable 

 quantity no doubt produces injurious symptoms." Miquel in an old work on 

 poisonous plants published in 1838 in Dutch regarded the smuts as poisonous. 



Dr. Peters of the University of Nebraska, makes the following comments 

 on the subject of corn smut: 



At a Farmers' Institute at David City a gentleman stated that he had often heard his 

 neighbors say, and he had also read the same in agricultural papers, that cornstalk disease 

 was caused by corn smut. He had the opportunity to make the test for himself. He was 

 compelled to clear the farm he rented of the smut. His son gathered the smutty stalks 

 into a yard where two cows ate considerable of the smutty leaves. No bad results followed, 

 as witnessed by the gentleman himself and the owner of the place. 



