FIELD AND FOREST. 47 



asserts that the Uredines are none the less productive in variety of forms. 

 May not this phenomenon extend, under certain circumstances, to the 

 agarics. Experience teaches us that fungi can adapt themselves to 

 all circumstances, though at the same time they exhibit strong leading 

 preferences for certain habitats. 



What if the rust and the smut, of which we hear farmers complain 

 so bitterly, is in many instances brought into fields with the dead leaves 

 and scrapings of the woods often used as manure ? 



It is certain that woods so gleaned contain but few agarics or Boleti. 

 The granular contents of the spores may produce the infection to a 

 greater extent, entering either through the roots or the stomata devel- 

 oping into lower forms. 



Tell this to the ordinary agriculturist and he will inform you that 

 there is lime enough upon his field to kill every fungus in creation. 

 That the grain was steeped in salts previous to planting. Later in the 

 season, when corn is ready for gleaning, we ask him to go with us and 

 very likely we will find some diminutive Agarics growing about the 

 roots of his corn. 



Do what you will with fungi there is ever one left to whisper the 

 story of the others' wrongs. We once saw them growing upon the 

 verge of a lime kiln, looking as if they had marched there for the 

 express purpose of witnessing the terrible forces that were about to be 

 put in operation against them. Of course the above suspicion of dual- 

 ism in grain fields is purely hypothetic, but one which we think well 

 worthy of being noticed by those who resort to the woods for manure. 



Perhaps the idea of this particular form of inoculation maybe inval- 

 idated by Dr. De Bary's experiments with parasitic fungi upon the 

 common garden cress, proving in that particular case that the spores did 

 not enter through the roots of the plants or through their leaves, but 

 through the stomata of the cotyledons or seed leaves. It is quite certain 

 that the most luxuriant crops of mildew are found on plants that choose 

 for their habitat a rich soil of either vegetable mould or compost and the 

 intelligent agriculturist is particularly careful to eradicate all weeds 

 from the borders of his fields, lest they extend and perpetuate the much 

 dreaded rust and smut of the agriculturist, the Trichobasis rubigo 

 vera and the Ustilago segetum of botanists. \_To be continued.^ 



M. E. B. 



