October i, tSSi/j THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
353 
Is of vignerons and 
arte. At this period 
Irth of the total agri- 
ie applied three or four 
sfnrm her French vines 
ngvines by grafting. The 
nrmation are effected are 
meriean vine on the 
2nd. Procuring Ameri- 
the French vines on 
more economical, but 
time before he receives 
labour. By the second 
i that a 
grafted 
twofold. 1st Grafting 
already attacked EYencI 
can rooted vines and g 
them The first plan 
the vigneron has to wai 
any return for his outl 
method a larger capital 
return is secured. The 
pears, hastena the fructi 
very much quicker retu 
vines than from those planted in the ordinary man- 
ner. In grafting, t lie scion is placed very low down 
on the stuck and well moulded up, while all suckers 
from the root are carefully removed in order that they 
may not absorb the sap to the detriment of the graft. 
The American graft soon tnkes root, and in a short 
time is able to support itself, while the old French 
roots gradually succumb to the attacks of the 
phylloxera. In this manner immense areas of 
French vineyards are being transformed from 
French vines into American phylloxera-resistin • 
vines Care must be taken 1o select the kinds be*t suited 
to the climate, and which have proved proof against 
the attacks of the phylloxera. The energy and skill 
of the French vignerons have overcome the utter 
ruin that threatened them s • lately. They have sought 
and obtained a r ra-ily for the scourge thas was ruin- 
ing their vineyards in the source of the evil — the 
American vine. 
From whence is the re medy for the Ceylon scourge 
to be obtained ? By degrees no doubt the widely- 
extended cultivation of. new products, more especially 
of cinchona, must check the rapid dissemination and 
▼irulein'o of the coffee fungus, and although the change 
in the life-phases of the latter, so eagerly anticipated, 
is Ion,' ot coming, we suppose it it still possible that 
a prolonged interval of dormancy may b" experienced. 
There are many features iu common between " Rust 
on Wheat " and the fungus en the Coffee leaf, and we 
find in recent numbers of Tlie Field some curious and 
intereniin^ information in respect of the former: — 
Til : BKHUKIJRY AND KUST IN WHEAT. 
TO THE EDITOU OF TOE "FIELD." 
Sin, - 1 have for some years inhabited an old chateau 
in Brittany. In the garden attached to the house is a 
berberry tree. My neighbours (French peasants) want 
mo t' out it down, as they say it is the cause of 
Bmut in their wheat, which is seriously affected by 
that t i Dose this year. Have am of your readers ever 
beard of tin* nuperstition — aa I believe it to be 
and 13 it one peculiar to Brittany ?— Banshee. |J'm>- 
fessoi Bnckmi.n, writing in Bind ley's "Treasnry of 
Botany, says, in an article on the berberry: "An- 
other popular no'ion with rrspert to this shrub is 
that it. is the cause of blight, or rust, in corn. This 
has arisen from the circumstance that tho berberry is 
itself frequently attacked by a aperies of epiphyte 
(the .-i: mbum herberidis), in which tho leaves ap- 
pear Q be covered with spots of a briglitish nd 
colour; whilst wheat is subject to another epiphyte 
(the Uredo rubijio, or rust). There has, however, 
been no conneetion traced between these two, and 
thee can be no doubt that the peculiarity of colour 
is at the bottom of both the poputai errors now 
described ; at all events, with regard to the last, we 
can point to fields and districts where rust is com- 
mon on wheat, and yet there is no berberry near, 
while in other spots close under a berberry hedge 
this disease of wheat has scarcely been heard of." — 
Sir,— Will you allow me to make a few remarks 
on this subject, respecting which you had a note in 
your last issue. It is quite true that the berberry 
was formerly regarded as being concerned in the pro- 
panati n of rust in wheat, and that after a time this 
opinion was abandoned. But within recent years the 
theory has' not only been revived, but practically 
demonstrated. Prof. Oliver remarks: "There is a 
prejudice amongst farmers that, the berberry causes 
wheat grown near it to become blighted ; but the fuugns 
which attacks the berberry has been, until recently, 
regarded as belonging to a genus different from that 
which infests wheat, and the prejudice consequently 
was supposed to be without any reasonable founda- 
tion. Observations, however, by Oersted and De Bary 
prove, notwithstanding the differences which have 
been regarded as generic between the two fungi, that 
they are merely alternating generations of one and 
the same species." 
I may add that such unimpeachable authorities as 
Sachs and Prantl speak most uuhesitatiDgly on this 
point, the latter observing, with reference to Pucciuia 
graminis ('he rust of wheat), that the uredospores 
(formerly called Uredo linearis) form red streaks on 
the leaves and haulms of cereals and grasses. In the 
autumn other spores (teleuto-spores) appear in similar 
streaks, but black ; these germinate iu the following 
spring exclusively ou the leaves of berberry, where 
the secidia appear in red swollen patches (lormerly 
known as jEcidium herberidis); the aocidiosporcs are 
conveyed to grasses, and there give rise to a myce- 
lium with urcd ispores — the rust again, in fact; and 
so the cycle is completed. Eust of wheat is, there- 
fore, one of those organisms which require an altera- 
tion of ho*t plants to enable them to go through 
the Complete cycle of their life-history, and to this 
phenomenon Do Buy h;;s given the name of beter- 
cecism. Familiar par all 1 examples amongst animals 
are afforded b J l he liver-fluke, which in one part of its 
life-history inhabits the body of a mollusc, and dur- 
ing another pa' t it takes up its quarters in the in- 
ternal organs of certain herbivorous animals as sheep, 
rabbits, and cattle ; certain internal parasites of the 
dog again carry ou a part of their life in the intes- 
tines of the human subject. Such plant and animal 
para»ites then require an alternation of hosts, and if 
either host fail, the parasites will probably perish. 
As fungal spores are excessively minute, they are 
oasiiy transported by the wind, and a wheal fi Id 
may get rusted ven many miles from the neighbour- 
hood of growing berberry plants. And even should 
the berberry be utterly exterminated, it w uld be 
rash to infer that rust would also disappear, for fun- 
gal parasites l ave a wonderful power of adapting 
themselves to surrounding conditions, and a now 
alternating host plant might gradually be brought 
into use. Thus, even now certain grasso-" get rusted 
by species of I'uccinia, which find alternating hosts, 
in one caso in borage plants, in other cases iu the 
buckthorn of our hedgerows. That a wot uea-on is 
not neoessary to the abundant production of rust ia 
well ahnWU by the character of tho draw thii sum- 
mer, which, iu this locality at all events, i> b.ully 
rusted. W. Fkeam. 
Collogo of Agriculture, Downton, Aug. 1. 
