VO>^. XIII. XO. 10. 



II ' ' ■ 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOtJliNAL. 



to iIk; ear of 



(luces siiuitty 



the sijed in strong lime vviiter, 



kills the seed of the smut. 



the grain, where it grows and |n-o- 



jraiu. Ills preventive is to stee|) 



wliieh he supposes 



There is no doubt 



77 



liuiing seed wheat is a sure 



Thousands of trials, made 



Europe, leave not a douht 



that the steeping and 

 ^ remedy against smut. 

 in this country and in 

 U]ioii this subject. 



IMr. Bauer's last con)munication is on what he 

 calls Ihe grain worms (vibrio tritici), and is accom- 

 panied with drawings of the diseased grain, and of 

 tile insects as tiiey appear under a highly magni- 

 fying microscope. The disease is known in Eng- 

 land under the ditierent names of ear cockle, broicn 

 purple, and burnt corn. Mr. B.'s experiments and 

 observations were commenced in 1807, anti were 

 continued down to 1823, at vvliirh time he conj- 

 municated a detailed account of them to the Royal 

 Society, which may be seen in the Philosophical 

 Transactions of the latter year. We do not feel 

 conjpetent to decide, whether the grain worms de- 

 scribed by Jlr. Bauer are the same as those which 

 attack our wheat, but we are inclined to the ojiin- 

 ion that they are identical. We subjoin an ex- 

 tract trotn Mr. B.'s communication, which cannot 

 fail to interest the fanner as well as the naturalist. 

 "Being fully convinced that the worms or their 

 eggs, like the seeds of the pepper brand and dust 

 brand [smut], must be absorbed by the germinat- 

 ing" seed corn, and profielled by the circulating 

 sap into the young gerniens, and reflecting that I 

 had successfully inoculated the wheat grains with 

 the liiiigi, I determined to try the same experi- 

 ment with the worms; accordingly, I selected a 

 sufficient number of sound wheat grains, and ex- 

 tracting a small jjortion of the worms frgm the 

 cavities of the infected grains, (which had been 

 previously soaked in water about an hour,) and 

 placing some in the grooves on the jiosterior sides 

 of the sound grain, I left them for some days to 

 get dry, and planted theni in the ground on the 

 /til Oct. 1807. At the same time 1 planted some 

 sound wheat grains in separate holes, about two 

 inclies deep, and in each hole two or three infect- 

 ed grains also. About the middle of Nov. most of 

 the seeds had come up, and from time to time I 

 took some of these young plants for examination, 

 but did not perceive any etlect of the inoculation 

 until the 3d Dec. when out of nine plants, five 

 Bpiieared to be affected with worms. In the first 

 plant, alter carefully splitting the young plant from 

 the roots U(iwards, I found in the unorganized 

 Bubstance, between the radicle and plunuila, three 

 young worms very lively, but not much larger 

 than those with wliicli the corn was inoculated ; 

 in another plant I found a full sized worm, but no 

 eggs about it ; in the third plant I found a still 

 larger worm than the last, but in dividing the stem 

 I had cut the worm in two, and it soon died ; it 

 seemed to be full of eggs; in the other two plants 

 [ I'ound some worms quite young, and some half 

 ^rown ; but on the other four plants the inocula- 

 ;ion had no effect. The fact that, at such an early 

 stage of the vegetation of these inoculated seed 

 {lams, such large worms were found, confirms 

 iiy first supposition, that it requires several gener- 

 itions of these worms to introduce their eggs into 

 he young gerinens ; the large worms found in the 

 substance of the young stem were undoubtedly 

 !ome of the worms with which the seed corn was 

 noculated, for they were on the point of laying 

 heir eggs in that stage, and these eggs being 

 (gain propelled by the rising sap a stage farther, 



there come to maturity, and then lay their eggs, 

 and thus progressively reach the elementary sub- 

 stance of the ear, where they are finally deposited 

 in the then forming grain ; the whole progress 

 probably requires three or four reproductions." 



nir. B. then describes many subsequent examin- 

 alions of infected plants, and continues: 



" My experiments for resuscitating the grain 

 worms, I have repeated almost every succeeding 

 year to this day, and always with the same suc- 

 cess ; hut I find that the longer the specimens are 

 kept dry, the grains require to lay in water a 

 greater length of time before the grains will re- 

 cover ; and that after the saiae specimens had 

 been kept dry six years and one month, the worms 

 were ail really dead. 



That this disease is contagious, is sufiiciently 

 proved by the fact, that it can at pleasure be suc- 

 cessfully inoculated on the soundest seed corn. 

 The infection, however, is not so generally nor so 

 readily communicated as the disease occasioned by 

 the fungi of the smut balls or dust brand, a few 

 infected ears of which are capable of contaminat- 

 ing and infecting the whole contents of a barn. 

 Grains infected with these worms having no em- 

 bryo, cannot vegetate and produce again \liseased 

 grains of themselves but can only communicate 

 the infection by coming in contact with the ger- 

 minating seed corft in the soil, by the moisture of 

 which the worms are revived and extricate them- 

 selves, which I have so often observed they do 

 when kept some time in water. 



" Steeping the seed corn in lime water, in the 

 same manner as advised for preventing the dis- 

 eases occasioned by the fungi, is the most efl^ectual 

 method of preventing the spreading of this disease. 

 I have repeated the experiment by inoculating, 

 very strongly, sound wheat grains, with the worms, 

 and afterwards steeping them in lime water, and 

 the infection was always prevented ; I have also 

 steeped some sound wheat grains in lime water, 

 and after having kept them in a dry state for some 

 days, I inoculated them strongly with the worms, 

 but on examining the plants, not one case of in- 

 fection occurred. From these facts it is evident, 

 that properly steeping the seed corn in lime water, 

 before sowing, is a sure preventive of the disease 

 occasioned by grain worms." — Cultivator. 



From the Ohio Farmer. 

 PliANTING FRUIT TREES. 



I HAVE for many years devoted a good part ot 

 my time in raising fruit trees. I have watched 

 my own experiments, as well as those of my neigh- 

 bors, with a critic's eye, and feel a desire of lay- 

 ing before your readers my plan of planting trees. 

 I do not claim the 



pre-eminence over any one, 

 neither do 1 set myself up as a criterion for others 

 to be governed by ; but having tried various ways, 

 sometimes with partial success, and sometimes 

 with the entire loss of my trees, 1 feel satistied 

 with my present plan of planting, and hesitate not 

 to recommend it to others for trial. 



The tree to be planted should be as young as 

 circumstances will ailmit. The best season for 

 planting is just when the leaves begin to turn yel- 

 low in the fall ; — the spring will answer if done 

 very early ; the ground being prepared and the 

 tree taken up, prune the roots with a sharp knife, 

 so as to leave none over a foot long ; and if any 

 have been torn ofl" nearer to the stem, prune the 

 part so that no bruises or ragged parts remain ; 

 cut off all the fibres close to the roots, for they 

 never live, but mould, and do a material injury ; 



if they be cut oft' their place is quickly supplied 

 with others; dig the hole twice as big, and one 

 foot deeper, than the roots actually need for room ; 

 have fine earth and very fine rich mould, mixed 

 together ; lay some of this one foot deep at the 

 bottom of the hole; place the roots upon this in 

 their natural order, and hold tJie tree perfectly 

 straight, while you put sifted earth in the roots, 

 move the tree different ways, and give it a gentle 

 lift and shake, so that the fine earth may find its 

 way among the smallest roots, filling up the least 

 cavity; every root should he pressed by the earth 

 that is thrown in. When you have covered all 

 the roots with the sifted earth, and have found 

 that the tree is planted just as it originally stood, 

 allowing four inches for it to settle; fill up the rest 

 of the hole with common earth, and when you 

 have nearly filled it, tread lightly on the dirt, then 

 fill the remainder of the hole, leaving the top as 

 light and smooth as possible ; use no water, it 

 sinks rapidly down, makes cavities among the 

 roots, lets in air; the roots will mould and canker, 

 and the tree often die. If the tree be planted ear- 

 ly in October, it will have struck out roots a num- 

 ber of inches long before winter sets in, and this 



must he the best time for doing the business. 



They have the fall and winter to become perfectly 

 settled, and in spring they have nothing to do but 

 meet the genial rays of the sun, and to grow. 

 The roots should he out of ground as short a time 

 as possible, and if the roots become partially dry, 

 soak them a few hours in soft water. If the tree 

 be for an orchard, it should be five or six feet 

 high, unless cattle can be kept out; and each one 

 should be kejit steady by a stake, for if they be 

 moved about by the wind, the roots hecome loose 

 and the tree injured, — if the trees be very short 

 they will require no stake. They ought to be 

 planted the second year after budding or grafting. 

 If the tree be planted out in the fall, the head 

 should be shortened down in the spring. If you 

 plant in the spring, do it as early as possible, but 

 the ground must be dry on the top when you 

 plant, and as soon as the buds begin to swell, 

 shorten the head. After a spring planting, guard 

 against the drought, by laying small stones round 

 the tree, to the distance of two feet from the cen- 

 tre. — As it respects the distance of planting, this 

 depends upon the different kinds of liuit, as some 

 need more distance than others. 



HONEY BEES. 



Important Suggestion. A respectable farmer of 

 this neighborhood called on us a few days since, 

 for the [lurpose of inviting us to give publicity to 

 a practice adopted by him for preserving bees 

 through the winter, which he considers as one of 

 great utility and importance to farmers who pro- 

 duce their own honey. Our informant states that 

 he has kept bees for a number of years, and after 

 pursuing several expedients for the preservation of 

 bees through the cold weather, he last fall placed 

 his hives U|)oi) a suitable bench in his cellar which 

 was perfectly dry, and from which all light was 

 excluded. Upon bringing the hives again into the 

 open air a few days ago, the bees exhibited an un- 

 usual degree of healthiness aud activity, and there 

 were but a yety small number of dead ones in any 

 of the hives. This experiment is, in our infor- 

 mant's opinion a very successful one, and well 

 worthy the attention of those farmers who engage 

 in this branch of rural economy. It is at least de- 

 serving of a repetition — West Cheiler Herald, 



