UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 109 
Now, as to methods of infection. Seed has been col- 
lected the year previous to the collecting of the smut, pre- 
served over winter and planted the following spring, that 
is, the spring preceding the collection of the smut. The seed 
is planted and the crop harvested in the fall so that with 
care and selection we know that the crop produced is prac- 
tically clean from smut. This seed is preserved over the 
same winter as is the smut and is used the following spring 
to start the experiment. 
The seed is planted in two plats, one acting for the pur- 
pose of control, the other to be used for the purpose of in- 
fection. At blossoming time, the smut spores are either 
blown through an atomizer into the blossoms on all the in- 
fection plants, or they are placed by means of a brush into 
the flowers. The maturing seed of both plats is preserved 
until the following year, when each is again planted. Also 
at this planting, two more plats are simultaneously run, the 
soil of the one plat being previously inoculated with smut 
spores. The other plat presumably contains no smut 
spores, but is sown with seed which has been inoculated 
with the spores. Repeating then the plats as they will 
stand in the year in which results are obtained from the ex- 
periment, we have Plat 1 sown with seed grown from arti- 
ficially infected blossoms; plat 2 control; plat 3 sown with 
seed which has been infected; plat 4 sown with seed that is 
clean, but the soil containing smut spores. In the carrying 
on of these experiments, it should be mentioned that the 
greatest precautions have generally been taken to use only 
seed that has been properly sterilized before using. 
I do not want to trouble you with tables to any extent 
and hence I will repeat the results of but one experiment 
which was run by Brefeld in 1904-5. The experiment is 
taken at random amongst the many. 
Plat 1. Plants grown from seed produced from arti- 
ficially infected blossoms, 220 stalks, 67.7 per cent smutted. 
Plat 2. Plants produced from seed which, after steri- 
lization, has been inoculated with smut spores, 300 stalks, 
no smutted plants. 5 
