192 



New York Agricultural Experiment Station, at Geneva, demonstrated that 

 oat smut is not readily visible to the unpracticed eye unless ten or 

 more per cent, of the crop is affected. The smutted stalks are. to a large 

 extent, considerably shorter than the sound stalks, and can not usually be 

 seen except upon close examination of the field. And again, most of the 

 smutted masses are blown away by harvest time and only bare stalks 

 remain, leaving nothing conspicuous to indicate the amount of damage 

 done. 



Dr. Arthur found nine and one-half per cent, of smutted plants in 

 fields at the Geneva Station in which the presence of smut could scarcely 

 be detected without close examination. In the third annual report of 

 the New York Experiment Station he remarks in this connection : ,- The 

 appearance of smut as one passed through the fields was no greater than 

 is usually to be seen in any part of the country. * * * and the result 

 of the count * * * is as much a surprise to the writer as it will doubt- 

 less be to others." 



E. S. Goff, of the Wisconsin Experiment Station, estimated the loss 

 from oat smut in that State, in 1896, at about nine per cent. 



Bowman and Burnett, of the Iowa Experiment Station, found, in 1907, 

 an average of seven and nine-thenths per cent, of smutted heads in twenty 

 fields examined. 



Kellerman and Swingle estimated, in 1888 and 1889, that Kansas lost 

 annually over eleven per cent, of the oat crop from smut. 



In bulletin Xo. 37. of the Ohio Experiment Station. J. F. Hickman 

 says : "In passing through one of our oat fields last summer I observed 

 what seemed to be a smutted head here and there, but upon careful ex- 

 amination I found more than seven per cent, of this variety smutted." 



In order to demonstrate the importance and the value of the formal- 

 dehyde treatment as effectively as possible the county agents in a number 

 of counties made arrangements with some of the farmers to treat all their 

 seed oats except a small portion to serve as a check on the treatment. It 

 may lie well to state here that most of the farmers who agreed to make the 

 tests were under the impression that their oat crops of the previous seasons 

 were comparatively free from smut. The test fields were distributed over 

 Madison, Grant. Laporte. Pulaski and Benton counties. 



When the oats headed out the county agents counted the smutted 

 heads and figured out the percentage of smut on the treated and untreated 

 plots. In Madison County, where the writer assisted the county agent, 



