153 



without preventing its giving ample feed in Spring, and a good crop 

 of grain at the next harvest." How far these qualities might be 

 realized in our variable climate is doubtful. 



That all plants are, like animals, liable to diseases of varied cha- 

 racter and origin, is a weU-known circumstance ; and those of the 

 great family of the grasses, more especially of the cereals, are peculiar 

 and striking. The recognition of them in the latter, premonitory as 

 they are of disappointed hopes to the farmer, is of high antiquity ; and, 

 in certain instances, may date from the earliest periods of cultivation, 

 without having manifested any change in symptoms or destructive 

 influence. Such is probably the case with one to which rye is subject, 

 namely, that denominated ergot, from the French name for a cock's 

 spur, which the diseased and altered grain somewhat resembles in form. 

 The disease in question, though popularly known and described in its 

 association with rye only, is not at aU uncommon among other grasses, 

 especially such as grow in marshy meadows, and places liable to occa- 

 sional inundation ; while in very wet seasons many of the ordinary 

 pasture species are affected by it to a considerable extent, as I noted 

 to be the case last summer, 1860, with Alopecurus pratensis, Phleum 

 pratense, and Dactylis glomerata. The rye so affected, commonly 

 called spurred rye, or by naturalists Secale comutum, has occasionally, 

 in districts where this grain constitutes the principal bread-food of the 

 lower classes, been productive of most alarming and even fatal con- 

 sequences to the consumers. A diseased specimen is figured on our 

 plate 126, in contrast with a healthy ear or spike, as are likewise 

 views of the enlarged and distorted grain and of the granules, sporidia, 

 by means of which the disease, or at least the fungoid growth by which 

 it is accompanied, is propagated. 



No positive evidence of the effect of ergot, as observed by the late 

 Dr. Pereira, is found among the writings of the ancients ; but, ad- 

 mitting this fact, it. is still difficult to believe that a disease of so 

 common occurrence in cultivated grain, may not have been the cause 

 of certain, otherwise unaccountable, local epidemics referred to in 

 history. A quotation, by the author just mentioned, from an early 

 French writer, seems a case in point, as the circumstances detailed are 

 perfectly consistent with the known effects of ergot. "1089. A 

 pestilent year, especially in the western parts of Lorrain, where many 

 persons became putrid, in consequence of their inward parts being 

 consumed by St. Anthony's fire. Their limbs were rotten, and became 

 black like coal. They either perished miserably ; or, deprived of their 

 putrid hands and feet, were reserved for a more miserable life. Moreover, 

 many cripples were afflicted with contraction of the sinews." No notion 

 seems to have been entertained respecting the origin of the above dreadful 

 disorder from the use of diseased corn as food, although it is further 

 on record that " the bread which was eaten at this period was remark- 

 able for its deep violet colour." Nor indeed was it until toward the 

 termination of the seventeenth century that the attention of the 

 medical and scientific world was first particularly directed to the sub- 

 ififit bv M Dodard. From the year 1676, in which his observations 



