220 



On Early Spring Feed. 



subject, and is sufficiently hardy to defy the effects of the coldest 

 situations in the country, being there cultivated instead of wheat 

 for a corn crop from necessity. 



V. It is as inexpensive or more so than any grass or legumi- 

 nous plant. 



VI. It is readily consumed by stock, especially young animals. 



VII. It improves rather than deteriorates the soil upon which 

 it is grown. 



Thorpjield, near T/iirsk, Yorkshire, 

 Feb. 21, 1840. 



XXII. — 071 the Specific Idefitity of the Fungi producing Rust and 

 Mildeiv. By Rev. J. S. Henslow, M.A., Professor of Botany 

 in the University of Cambridge, and Rector of Hitcham, Suffolk. 



In my Report on the Diseases of Wheat (p. 9, sect, v.), I have 

 thrown out a conjecture that rust, or redgum, and mildew, are 

 possibly produced by two or three forms of spore generally con- 

 sidered as distinct, but in reality belonging to only one species of 

 parasitic fungus. I had not seen Philippar's valuable and recent 

 treatise^' on the diseases of corn at the time I wrote my Report ; 

 but I now find this author has expressed an opinion that Uredo 

 linearis is identical with Puccinia graminis ; though he still con- 

 siders Uredo ruhigo to be a distinct species. I believe that 

 botanists have hitherto universally supposed Uredo ruhigo (rust) 

 to be a distinct plant from Puccinia graminis (mildew). In a 

 lecture which I had the honour of delivering during last Decem- 

 ber to some members of the Royal Agricultural Society, I men- 

 tioned my having established (as I conceived) the specific identity 

 of the three fungi here alluded to. I stated that I had trans- 

 mitted some of the specimens upon which this proof depended to 

 my hitherto sceptical friend Mr. Berkeley, and that I had re- 

 ceived from him the following reply : — " Your specimens of Uredo 

 ruhigo and Puccinia graminis are very satisfactory. There can 

 be no doubt that the former is only an earlier stage of growth." 

 A notice of my lecture appeared in the first number of the Gar- 

 dener's Chronicle (p. 5) ; and M. Vilmorin, of Paris, inserted a 

 communication in the fifth number of the same periodical (p. 70), 

 in which he endeavours to prove, from his own observations, that 

 my assertions were probably ill-founded. The purport of his 



* Traite Organ ographique et Physiologico-Agricole sur la Carie, le 

 Charbon, I'Ergot, la Rouille, et autres Maladies du meme genre qui rava- 

 gent les Cereales.'' Versailles, 1837' 



