PROCEEDINGS, JULY. 



SMUT IN" WHEAT. 



Mr. Joseph Barwick contribuced the following paper on this subject 

 to the Council of the Royal Society of Tasmania, and it was read by 

 the Secretary at Monday night's meeting. In his paper Mr. Barwick 

 said : — My apology for addressing this pape:' to you is that we have 

 no Farmers' Club in Tasmania, or experimental farm, and my object is 

 to ask that a small space in your Botanical Garden may be granted to 

 test the cause of smut under your manager ; but before asking for this 

 unusual concession it is due to you that I should explain a few of the 

 tests thcxt I have practised for the last 15 37ears. It is a fact that this 

 pest has hitherto defeated all attempts to discover the cause, which 

 I can fairly claim to have discovered, and it was in this way. In 1873 

 I had a small paddock to sow with wheat, which I sowed with wheat 

 threshed by steam machine, but in completing the sowing I had not 

 sufficient dressed, as we term it, with blue stone, and I took sufficient 

 from a bag, which I sowed without dressing. The result was that only 

 about 25 per cent, of the dressed wheat came up, but that which was 

 sown without dressing produced upwards of 80 per cent, of plants ; but 

 upon the wheat coming to maturity I found that there was no smut in 

 that which was dressed, but that the small piece sown without dressing 

 contained more than 60 per cent, of smut. I then measured a square 

 rood of each, and counted the plants which had produced perfect wheat, 

 with the result that the number was nearly as possible equal, which at 

 once struck me that the dressing had simply destroyed that which would 

 have proved smutty. This induced me to enter into further tests the 

 following year, which I applied as follows : — (I must explain that in 

 those days it was not safe to sow wheat threshed by steam, consequently 

 we used to get sufficient threshed by hand for seed, ) I rubbed out 200 

 grains of wheat from stock which we were then threshing. I took 

 another 200 grains of that threshed by steam, 200 do. threshed by hand. 

 I divided these into two equal parts of 100 grains each. The first division 

 I dressed with bluestone,^ the other division I planted without dressing, 

 with the following result of that which was dressed : — Iso. 1. The 

 100 grains rubbed out by hand produced 96 plants of perfect wheat. No 

 2. Threshed by flail, or what is called hand-threshed, produced 81 

 plants of perfect wheat. No. 3. threshed by steam, produced 60 perfect 

 plants. 1 will now ask you, gentlemen, to mark the result of that 

 which was not dressed. The 100 rubbed out by hand produced 98 

 perfect plants and no smut. That threshed by hand produced 90 plants, 

 81 being perfect and nine smut. That threshed by steam produced 81 

 plants, 50 being perfect and 31 smut. This result confirmed my previous 

 experience that it was the damaged grain that produced smut, and that 

 the dressing simply destroyed these grains and prevented them from 

 germinating, but I did not stop here. I planted other beds with samples 

 threshed as described, and took up the plants as soon as they came 

 out of the ground, and I discovered that these damaged grains, unlike 

 perfect ones, came to the surface before shooting any roots, and that the 

 roots when they came they difi'ered from the perfect roots by spreading 

 in to a delicate form near the surface, instead of a strong, healthy, root 

 penetrating downwards, and during one test I divided my plot, and by 

 trying the plants with the finger and thumb upon one half of the plot, 

 and taking out those that came too readily I succeeded in taking out all 

 the defective plants but one, as shown when the wheat ripened, for I 

 had only one smut plant left when in the other half, I had 31 smut 

 plants. I have followed up my tests from year to year with the same 

 result, and have never produced a smut plant from grain rabbed out by 



