2 



RUST AND MILDEW IN INDIA. 



the worV, and upon certain direct personal observations. The:e 

 latter are, of course, few, as I have had neither the time nor the 

 opportunity for extending them. Such as they are. hovjever, they 

 will he set forth as soon as I have given reasons for believing that 

 the fungus is prevalent in India wherever wheat is grown, from its 

 known distribution elsewhere. Thus we know it to be extensively 

 prevalent throughout Europe and the United States. It is also 

 known to occur over large areas in Australia, so much so that Prof. 

 F. M. "Webster, the American representative at the Australian 

 Exposition, " informs us that in some of the colonies the raising of 

 wheat, oats, and similar cereals has to be almost abandoned 

 because of the prevalence of rust, where otherwise crops above the 

 average could be produced."* The Director of the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station of Indiana (Dr. H. E. Stockbridge), who was 

 lately in the service of the Government of Japan, states, " that in 

 the northern part of that country, where the government has made 

 costly and strenuous exertions to supplant rice culture by the grow- 

 ing of wheat, the latter crop is frequently utterly ruined, and on the 

 average damaged to the extent of 20 per cent, by the very general 

 prevalence of rust.''t Dr. Frank J says it is known in the Cape of 

 Good Hope, and, indeed, that the fungus appears to accompany 

 crops all over the world. 



From this alone we might safely assume that it is also exten- 

 sively prevalent over India. But there is some direct evidence 



pointing to this conclusion. In the Transactions of the Agricultural 

 and Horticultural Society oj India, vol. vi., 1839, Capt. Sleeman 

 reports the immense destruction of crops from it in the Narbadda 

 Valley and through Malwa generally. The particular epidemic he 

 describes was unusually severe, and this periodic recurrence of 

 severe epidemics is characteristic of the disease. Thus particular 

 years of frightful destruction are known to have occurred in 

 England, Germany, and America. It might therefore be supposed 

 that during the intervals of such epidemics the pest is absent. 

 This, however, is not the case elsewhere in the world, and is not 

 the case in India. In 1887 Col. Kenneth Mackenzie, Judicial 

 Commissioner of Berar, informed me that he had frequently known 

 rust to be so prevalent in that province, that in walking through 

 fields his clothes were covered with red dust (the uredosporos). 

 Again, early in 1889, a year not known to be one of rust prevalence, 

 I obtained specimens of well rusted wheat from such remote 

 localities as Dumraon, Jeypore, and Gujrat, and later from Gilghit ; 

 while my personal observation of the fields about Simla for some 

 years showed me that the wheat crops are annually enormously 

 rusted and mildewed. There can therefore be no doubt in my mind 

 that the parasite is widely prevalent, and that it annually gives rise 

 to enormous loss. 



* H. L. Bolley, loc. cit. See also Gardeners' Chronicle, June 7th 1890 

 p. 714, where it is noted, " It is estimated that a million of money has been 

 lost this season in South Australia, from the ravages of red rust." 



t H. L. Bolley, loc. cit. 



\ Die Krankhe'tten der Pflanzen : Breslau, 1880, 



