THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



325 



grain, (as usually done after steeping or washing 

 in brine.) On one occasion, he treated in this man- 

 ner some seed wheat which he bought, which was 

 a beautiful sample of grain, but greatly mixed with 

 smut — so much so, as to be offensive to the smell. 

 The crop from the washed seed had no smut. 



51. Mr. Hill Carter, also, and for like reasons, 

 objects to all use of brine. For prevention of smut, 

 he puts the seed in whitewash, made by putting 

 unslaked quicklime in water, and having the mix- 

 ture thin enough for the light grains and impurities 

 to float and be skimmed off, when stirring the seed 

 under the fluid ; as soon as this has been done suf- 

 ficiently, the wheat is dipped out and drained in 

 baskets, and then spread to dry. Enough slaked 

 quicklime is sprinkled over to separate the grains, 

 and render them dry enough for convenient sowing. 

 The same whitewash is used twice, or sometimes 

 thrice ; but when it is deemed too foul, the remnant 

 is thrown away. The heat produced by slaking 

 the lime is not hurtful to the seed, if much below 

 the boiling degree. The effect of this whitewash 

 steep is always to discolor the grain, and sometimes 

 the skin can easily be slipped off by pressing the 

 wet grain between the finger and thumb, without 

 the germination being affected. The wheat is al- 

 lowed to remain no longer in the steep than to wash 

 and stir and cleanse it well. This preventive is 

 deemed by Mr. C. as both effectual and safe. 



52. Judge Thomas Ruffln, of Allamance, North 

 Carolina, has used the solution of bluestone for 

 smutted seed wheat and always found the product 

 perfectly free of the disease. From his practice 

 and experience, he had entire confidence in this 

 preventive remedy. 



53. Col. Williamson Simmons of Prince George 

 county, Virginia, has used saturated brine for all 

 his seed wheat, and afterwards dusting with quick- 

 lime (the most generally used preventive) for eight 

 or ten years; has found it effectual against smut, 

 and had not suspected any loss in or injury to the 

 seed wheat. His washing was always of short 

 time. He had never made any comparative trials 

 of the sprouting. 



The last two minutes, of cases of entire success, 

 and confidence in the use of these different washes 

 or steeps, might be multiplied to any number. 

 These cases happened to be the last stated to me — 

 and they will serve as examples of the more ex- 

 tended opinions of numerous intelligent farmers. 

 On the other side, as examples of remarkable ex- 

 ceptions to these general rules of entire preventive 

 effect, I will add the following cases, which, more 

 fully reported, have just appeared in the last num- 

 ber of the Southern Planter: 



54. Col. Edmund Fontaine, of Hanover, used the 

 strong solution of bluestone, as a steep, for 12 to 

 16 hours, and in the usual and approved manner, 

 and with all due care, for his seed wheat, of a pre- 

 vious .-smutty crop, and for his several farms. The 

 wheat came up well. The crops produced from 

 this seed had about as much smut as those from 

 which the seed had been taken. 



For experiment, a small portion of the same seed 

 had been mixed with a large quantity of smut balls 

 and dust, before separated in fanning, the mixture 

 rubbed together well by the hand, and then this 

 foul sample sown separately for observation. The 

 product had about as much smut as that from the 

 steeped seed. For the next autumn's seeding, 

 (1853,) he used the seed of his crops having some 

 smut (as stated above) without any preparation. 

 When writing his communication, August 3d, he 



had heard, particularly, from only one of his farms, 

 where the threshing was then nearly finished, and 

 the overseer reported that he had found no smut 

 in the crop. 



55. The other case of exception, referred to, is 

 that of Dr. Thomas Meaux, of Amelia, whose very 

 striking facts cannot be more concisely quoted than 

 in his own words, (Southern Planter, September, 

 1854.) He says: "After fifteen years of what was 

 considered the successful use of brining and liming 

 seed^ wheat, in preventing smut, I published the 

 fact in the Planter. Two consecutive years now 

 satisfy me the conclusion arrived at was fallacious, 

 and I retract the opinion. On the contrary, I have 

 heard of three well authenticated cases of much 

 injury being done to the vegetative power of the 

 seed by the process." 



56. From all my experience and information on 

 this mysterious disease, and its remedies, I draw 

 the following inferences : 



That smut is infectious, and usually may be 

 communicated by contagion of smut to other pure 

 wheat: 



That smut also originates where none had existed 

 before, from sources or causes as yet unknown: 



That all the usual remedies of washing or steep- 

 ing, (and perhaps dry liming,) are generally effec- 

 tual in guarding against smut occurring to any 

 considerable extent ; but that no one is always and 

 completely a preventive : 



That brining seed wheat is always injurious to 

 the germinating power— and destructive as to all 

 cracked grains. 



With much less confidence, and indeed much 

 doubt, I offer the following supposed reason for the 

 apparent contradictory operations of the different 

 preventive remedies for smut, viz : That the disease 

 already produced, and the smut dust already in 

 contact with sound grains of wheat, are certainly 

 and always removed and destroyed by the usual 

 washings and cleanings of the grain, or the vitality 

 of existing smut is destroyed by contact of caustic 

 lime. But any such remedy, however effectual 

 and complete, cannot prevent the new originating 

 of smut in the next growing crop, from the un- 

 known sources or causes, whether these be in the 

 peculiar condition of the soil, or the seed, or the 

 atmosphere, or any thing else unknown serving in 

 any other case to originate this disease where it 

 had not been before. 



Softening or Disintegrating Stony or Hard Calca- 

 reous Matters and Bones, by the Fermentation of 

 Putrescent Manure. 



57. Dr. William S. Morton, of Cumberland, first 

 made known to the public, through the first num- 

 ber of the Farmers' Register, the existence of what 

 he then supposed to be marl of peculiar character, 

 on the farm of his then residence in Prince Edward 

 county. The earth in question, though not marl 

 in any of the many senses in which that term has 

 been used, was indeed a bed, of very limited thick- 

 ness, containing scattered nodules of stony hard- 

 ness, and which contained 70 or 80 per cent, of car- 

 bonate of lime. I have since seen the like forma- 

 tion in various other places both in Virginia and in 

 South Carolina. The lumps are manifestly the re- 

 sult of the slow deposition (by evaporation) of 

 rain water, which after having dissolved lime nearer 

 the surface, had sunk as low as the earth permitted 

 percolation, and had there deposited the dissolved 

 lime. 



These lumps, though so rich in lime, #e;*e tc© 



