ee ier See D With COLEER SULPHATE 10 
ewe one ATTACKS OF FUNGI 
INTRODUCTION. 
The object of treating seed with some chemical before planting is 
fourfold: (1) To hasten germination, (2) to furnish nourishment for the 
young plant, (3) to protect the seed from insect and other animal pests, 
and (4) to prevent the attacks of fungi. Investigations have been con- 
ducted with greater or less success in all these pee) but it is only with 
the last that this paper is concerned. 
To prevent the attacks of fungi many kinds of seed treatment have 
been tried. These treatments may be classified under two heads— 
treatment with chemicals and treatment with heat. It has long been 
known that where the spores of a fungus are present on seed when 
sown the fungus is able to infect many plants. The spores of many 
smuts germinate simultaneously with the seed, and finding entrance 
into the delicate tissues of the young plant, the fungus is safe from all 
external treatments, and its presence remains unsuspected until about 
the time of the maturity of the plant, when it reappears to infect the 
seed of the host. In this way the life cycles of many parasitic fungi 
are passed; hence, if the development of the plant could in some way 
be hastened or the growth of the spores of the fungus retarded until 
the young plants have made even a small amount of growth, they would 
be practically secure from infection, or if the spores adhering to the 
seed could be destroyed without injuring the seed itself all danger from 
parasites would be removed. 
Nobbe,! quoting Kiihn, states that the spores of grain smuts will 
retain their vitality for a year or more, and that if these spores could 
be prevented from germinating, or if their germination could be delayed 
for a short time, much if not all the injury done to our grain crops 
would be avoided. 
Kiihn? claims that the time during which a fungus can infect a plant 
is limited to a very brief period in the early part of its germination, 
and that if the spores of a fungus are subjected for twenty minutes to 
dilute solutions of copper sulphate they will not germinate. 
Wollft,? in 1874, repeated the experiments of Kiihn and confirmed 
1Landw. Vers. Stat., 15, 1872, p. 274. 
2Tbid. 
3 Der Brand des Getreide, etc., Halle, 1874, p. 18. 
