162 



THE AMERICAN 



that depai-tment will be couducted. But we 

 leave him to lay his own plans before the reader. 

 All letters on botanical subjects shonld be ad- 

 dressed to Mr. Yasey, at Ricliview, Ills., and 

 all those on entomological matters, as usual, to 

 the writer, C. "\^. R. 



AVHEAT RUST AND BAKBERKY KDST. 



The article on page 85 of our present volume, 

 entitled "A so-called 'Vulgar Error ' no Error 

 at all," has called forth the following paragraph 

 from the Country Gentleincm : 



A Singular Ixconsistexcv. — ^^Ve have re- 

 peatedly commended the American Entomolo- 

 gist for its common sense and scientific accuracy. 

 It has always been severe on the superficial 

 errors of the day. But in a late numbei-, it has 

 somewhat deviated from this general course, 

 and endorsed the opinion that the barberry 

 causes rust in the wheat — although this opinion 

 is not sustained with a tenth part of the wit- 

 nesses who assert that wheat is transmuted to 

 chess. We never saw finer and fairer wheat 

 than grew in immediate contiguity to barberry 

 bushes, and in addition to this, the article in 

 the Entomologist expressly quotes the state- 

 ment of S. ET Todd, that" " he had seen the 

 tinest crops of wheat growing close besidFthc 

 bush spoken of." 



All which is as much as to say that they 

 (the editors of the Country G-entleman) , do not 

 believe that the barberry causes rust in wheat, 

 and that we ourselves have fallen into one of 

 the superficial errors of the day. Very well, 

 gentlemen, you have a perfect right to your 

 opinion, but when you assail that of others, you 

 must stand ready to defend your own. "We 

 throw down the glove, and if you wish to pick 

 it up, you will find us ready! This fnngus 

 question does not properly come within our 

 province, and we freely confess that we do 

 not even know the ABC of the science of 

 mycology; but we are always ready to defend 

 any position we have assumed, and will freely 

 " confess the corn '' whenever it shall be shown 

 that we are in the wrong. We write for truth 

 and not for victory, and in the present case we 

 have taken up the cudgel in defense of the plain, 

 practical farmer, because we feel quite confident 

 that for once he is in the right. Nor have we 

 based our belief upon any experience of our 

 own, but upon the authority of Professors De 

 Bary and QErsted, and of Sir Joseph Banks, to 

 whose conclusions, founded on experiment, we 

 beg leave to give the- preference over all the 

 opinions, assertions and asseverations, not so 

 founded, that ever were or ever will be thun- 

 dered forth. Consequently the Country Gen- 

 tleman, in the above-quoted item, in reality 



makes no charge against us, but disputes the 

 veracity, and questions the ability and scien- 

 tific accuracy of the authors named. It has been 

 demonstrated by GErsted that a certain fungus 

 (Podisoma sabince) infesting the branches of 

 the Savin, is but a phase of another {Bcestelia 

 cancellatci) which attacks the leaves of the Pear ; 

 that one {Podisoma clavarisforme) which occurs 

 on the branches of the Juniper is but the first 

 asexual state of Rastelia penicillata, which man- 

 ifests itself on the leives of the Apple and White 

 Thorn ; and finally, ttia,t Podisoma jmiiperinwm, 

 which alsfe inhabits the leaves and branches of 

 the Juniper, is identical with that of Bcestelia 

 cornifera, whicli infests the leaves of the Moun- 

 tain Ash. Does the Country Gentleman like- 

 wise dispute the correctness of these physio- 

 logical discoveries? 



We know that ever since this matter was first 

 discussed, in 1774, it has been the fashion to 

 deride the common belief of the farmer, and 

 singularly enough this fixshion has prevailed to 

 the greatest extent with those who passed most 

 of their lives amid piles of brick and mortar. 

 Wc are all too apt to follow in other people's 

 footsteps, and to believe too implicitly what we 

 were taught in cliildhood; and there always 

 will be men who prefer to accept the fossilized 

 and crude ideas entertained hundreds of years 

 ago, rather than to make investigations and 

 think for themselves. But this is pre-eminently 

 an age of progress, and we find that many a 

 dogma which for years may have had supreme 

 hold of the public mind, has been shattered, so 

 to speak, by modern investigation. Many an 

 idea that was scouted as ridiculous and absurd 

 but a decade since, is now accepted as a truth, 

 and the discoveries that have been made during 

 that time have convinced every candid and 

 earnest naturalist, that life, whether animal or 

 vegetable, is altogether more plastic and pro- 

 tean than was formerly supposed; and the 

 lower down in the scale we go, the more shall 

 we find this to be true. 



As a striking and familiar example, we may 

 mention that the Hydra tuba, Scyphistoma, 

 Strobila and Ephydra were supposed by super- 

 ficial observers to be perfectly distinct and dif- 

 ferent animals, till they were all proved by 

 experiment to be but different forms of the 

 common Jelly-fish or Meduste; and hundreds 

 of similar cases among the lower plants and 

 animals might be cited, some even, as wc 

 have already shown, where the different forms 

 of one and the same species have been ranked 

 as distinct genera. It is only since a compara- 

 tively recent period that by aid of our much 



