50 British Uredinee and Ustilaginec. 
stripe of a dark livid colour, obvious to a person riding on 
the road at a considerable distance. 
“The part affected resembled the tail of a comet, the 
bush itself representing the nucleus, on one side of which 
the sensible effect reached about twelve yards, the tail 
pointing towards the south-west, so that probably the effect 
took place during a north-east wind. 
“ At harvest, the ears near the bush stood erect, hand- 
ling soft and chaffy; the grains slender, shrivelled, and 
light. As the distance from the bush increased the effect 
was less discernible, until it vanished imperceptibly. 
“The rest of the piece was a tolerable crop, and the 
straw ‘clean, except on a part which was lodged, where 
the straw nearly resembled that round the barberry; but 
the grain on that part, though lodged, was much heavier 
than it was on this, where the crop stood erect. 
“The grain of the crop, in general, was thin-bodied ; 
nevertheless ten grains, chosen impartially out of the ordi- 
nary corn of the piece, took twenty-four of the barberried - 
grains, chosen equally impartially, to balance them.” 
In 1784, Marshall repeated his experiment at Statfold, 
in Staffordshire, with the same result. He says *— 
“Upon the whole, although I have not from this year’s 
experience been able to form any probable conjecture as to 
the cause of the injury, it nevertheless serves to fix me still 
more firmly in my opinion that the barberry is injurious 
to wheat.” 
_ Withering, writing in 1787 of Berberis vulgaris, says,t 
“This shrub should never be permitted to grow in corn- 
lands, for the ears of wheat near it never fill, and its influ- 
ence in this respect has been known to extend as far as 
three hundred or four hundred yards across a field.” 
* Marshall, ‘‘ Rural Economy of the Midland Counties” (1790), vol. ii, 
p. 1. 
+ Withering, ‘‘ Botanical Arrangement” (1787), 2nd edit., p. 366. 
