226 ON THE BLIGHT IN CORN. 



Felice Fontana publifhed in the year 1767 an elaborate ac- 

 count of this mifchievous weed,* with microfcopic figures, 

 which give a tolerable idea of its form ; more modern bo- 

 tanifrsr have given figures both of corn and of grafs affeclcd 

 by it, but have not ufed high magnifying powers in their re- 

 fear dies, 

 but agriculturists Agriculturifts do not appear to have paid, on this head, 

 have paid little ^ fufficient attention to (he difcoveries of their fellow-labourers 

 faclt? '^ in tne ^ le ^ °^ natu, re; f°r though fcarce any Englifh writer 



of note on the fubjeft of rural economy has failed to ftate his 

 opinion of the origin of this evil, no one of them has yet attri- 

 buted it to the real caufe, urilefs Mr. Kirby's excellent papers 

 on fome difeafes of corn, publifhed in the Tranfactions of the 

 Linnaean Society, are confidered as agricultural elfays. 

 Engravings of On tms account it has been deemed expedient to offer to 

 this deftru&ive the confideration of farmers, engravings of this destructive 

 cu^el-Tv/ "^ P^ an ^' made from the drawings of the accurate and ingenious 

 by Mr. Bauer Mr. Bauer, Botanical Painter to his Majefty, accompanied 



are here offered w ^ {-, j s explanation, from whence it is prefumed an attentive 



to then- confider- ' r 



ation. reader will be able to form a correct idea of the fads intended 



to be reprefented, and a juft opinion whether or not they 



are, as is prefumed to be the cafe, correct and fatisfa&ory. 



Organized ftruc- In order, however, to render Mr. Bauer's explanation more 



ture of the fur- ea f v (o be underfiood, it is neceffary to premife, that the 



Its pores or " ft'iped appearance of the furface of a ftraw which may be 



mouths, fliut in feen with a common magnifying glafs, is caufed by alternate 



wet weather! " ' 0,1 gitudinal partitions of the bark, the one imperforate, and 



the other furnifhed with one or two rows of pores or mouths, 



ihut in dry, open in wet, weather, and well calculated to imbibe 



fluid whenever the ftraw is damp. % 



By 



" gies of reafcn, and to reward the farmer for the exertions of his 



*< intellectual faculties, by the iatisfa&ion of furmounting them.'" 



" Jan. 30th, ISO:). 1 ' " JOS. BANKS." 



* OfTervazioni fopra la Ruggine del Grano. Lucca, 1767, 8vo. 

 t Sowerby's Englith Fungi, Vol. II. Tab. 140, Wheat Tab. 139. 

 Poa aquatica. 

 The cores or 1 Pores or mouths iimilar to thefe are placed by nature on the 



mouths on the furface of the leaves, branches, and Items, of all perfect plants, a 

 fur/ace of plants p rov ifion intended no doubt to conipentate, in fome meafure, the 

 abforb'moiftute. wailt of loco-motion in vegetables. A plant cannot when thirfty 



go 



