ON THE BLIGHT IN CORN. 231 



liability, require as many weeks for its progrefs from infancy 

 to puberty as it does days during the heats of autumn ; but a 

 very few plants of wheat, thus infecfed, are quite fufficient if 

 the fungus is permitted to ripen its feed, to fpread the malady 

 over a field, or indeed over a whole parifh. 



The chocolate-coloured blight is little obferved till the corn The chocolate 

 is approaching very nearly to ripenefs ; it appears then in lhe£ o!oured b J' shc d 

 field in fpots, which increafe very rapidly in fize, and are in from central 

 calm weather fomewhat circular, as if the difeafe took its P°'" ts of tha 

 origin from a central poution. 



May it not happen then, that the fungus is brought into the whence it may 



field in a few ftalks of infected ftraw uncorrupted among lhej" ve ^ ee . n , 



. . . . . brought in by 



mafs of dung laid in the ground at the time of fovving? it infeded ftraw ia 



muft be confeffed, however, that the clover lays, on which no the manure j 



dung from the yard was ufed, were as much infected laft 



autumn as the manured crops. The immenfe multiplication 



of the difeafe in the lad feafon, feems however to account for 



this; as the air was no doubt frequently charged with feed 



for miles together, and depofited it indifcriminately on all 



forts of crops. 



It cannot however be an expenfive precaution to fearch and may, it Is 

 diligently in fpring for young plants of wheat infefted with ilkel >'> be . 

 the difeafe, and carefully to extirpate them, as well as all by extirpating 

 graffes, for feveral are fubjecl to this or a fimilar malady, th ^ Pj'™ ts $ rlt 

 which have the appearance of orange-coloured or of black 

 (tripes on their leaves, or or their ftraw ; and if experience 

 (hall prove that uncorrupted ftraw can carry the difeafe with 

 it into the field, it will coft the farmer but little precaution to 

 prevent any mixture of frefh ftraw from being carried out 

 with his rotten dung to the wheat field. 



In a year like the prefent, that offers fo fair an opportunity, Whether blight- 

 it will be ufeful to obferve attentively whether cattle in the ftraw ed /*"* bc . mor<; 



* or lets nutritious 



yard thrive better or worfe on blighted than on healthy ftraw. than clean draw, 

 That blighted ftraw, retaining on it the fungi that have robbed for cattle * 

 the corn of its flour, has in it more nutritious matter than 

 clean ftraw which has yielded a crop of plump grain, cannot 

 be doubted; the queftion is, whether this nutriment in the 

 form of fungi does, or can be made to agree as well with the 



lomachs of the animals that confume it, as it would do in that 



t£ ftraw and com. 



It 



