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How to Pkotect Wheat. 



[Sept., 



HOW TO PROTECT WHEAT: SOME 

 NOTES ON FUNGUS PESTS. 



In a time of wheat shortage throughout the world, every 

 quarter grown in Britain is a national asset. There are two 

 methods of augmenting the supply : — (1) by enlarging the area 

 under cultivation, and (2) by increasing the yield per acre. The 

 importance of the former cannot be urged too strongly. It is 

 paramount. The possibilities of the latter are perhaps not 

 always fully realised. Cultivation, fertilisers, and varieties 

 materially affect the yield, and there is another factor equally 

 powerful in making for increased supplies, namely, the control 

 of fungus diseases. 



Exact figures are not available, but it is a lamentable fact that 

 through the insidious workings of rusts and smuts alone several 

 hundred thousand quarters of British wheat are lost annually. 

 Each season parasitic fungi quietly but persistently steal a por- 

 tion of the crop. They exact a toll on the nation's wealth and 

 impose, as it were, a tax on the farmer's income. Whether he 

 realises it or not, they reduce the farmer's income and rob him 

 of his profits. This " fungus tax," however, should be 

 contested, for the full amount need never be paid. A large 

 " abatement " can always be obtained, and in some cases com- 

 plete "exemption." Thus, by adopting proper measures an 

 attack of Bunt or Stinking Smut can be entirely prevented, and 

 the amount of Yellow and Black Rust largely reduced. 



Though the diseases of wheat are very numerous, the most 

 serious in this country at the present time are perhaps the three 

 referred to above. Reliable preventive measures, already known 

 to many farmers, have been found, and it is the object of this 

 article to bring them to wider notice. If the advice here offered 

 is taken, wastage of the 1921 crop through their ravages will be 

 reduced to a minimum. As a result the farmer will reap a better 

 harvest and will be able to present an additional contribution to 

 the much needed general wheat supply. 



Bunt or Stinking Smut. — In Bunt the ear appears normal, 

 but the grains when broken are found to contain merely a mass 

 of black spores which smells like putrid fish. The wheat plants 

 are infected in the seedling stage, but for a long time hold their 



