JOURNAL 



ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

 OF ENGLAND. 



I. — Report on the Diseases of Wheat. By the Rev. J. S. 

 Henslow, M.A., Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Cambridge^ and Rector of Hitcham, Suffolk. 



At the general meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, held 

 at Cambridge, in July last, it was stated, that none of the Essays 

 which had been sent in v^^ere considered worthy of the prize 

 proposed on the subject of diseases in corn. I have since then 

 seen these essays, and it was evident to me that the authors were 

 ignorant of many facts long known to scientific enquirers, respect- 

 ing the nature of these diseases, and the causes producing them. 

 However valuable some of the remarks may have been, as the 

 results of the personal and practical experience of their authors, 

 these essays fell far short of what the Society really wanted. Upon 

 my return home, it occurred to me, that a report on the nature 

 of the diseases in corn might be serviceable to those who wished 

 to prosecute an enquiry into the modes of preventing or palliating 

 them ; and I determined to look a little into the subject, and in 

 case I could find sufficient leisure for preparing such a report, to 

 do so. Although I was well acquainted with the fact, that cer- 

 tain diseases in corn were owing to the attacks of Fungi, I had 

 never paid further attention to the history of these minute plants, 

 than was required for their comparison and classification with 

 numerous others of the same tribe ; and I had no idea that the 

 diseases w^hich they produced in corn had occupied so much at- 

 tention, especially with continental writers, as this enquiry has 

 now shown me to have been the case. Very accurate observations 

 and experiments were made upon this subject during the last 

 century, and these have been added to, and improved upon, by a 

 numerous class of observers, down to the present day. Several 

 of their works I have had no opportunity of consuUing, as I 

 have but few of them in my own library ; and our public librarv 

 at Cambridge is also deficient in many, especially among the 

 more recent foreign authors. Having so lately turned my atten- 



