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4 BULLETIN 1210, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
plants that produced both smutted and sound heads and that the 
smut heads were diseased before they emerged from the boot. He 
suggests that interference with sap flow may be a factor. 
According to Jethro Tull (378), the use of salt brine for a | 
seed originated about 1650. A shipload of wheat had been beache 
near Bristol at high tide. The wheat was salvaged and, being unfit 
for grinding, but viable, was used for seed. This resulted in a clean 
crop, while fields in which home-grown seed was sown were bunted. 
He states, however, that this was only partially remedial, proving 
quite ineffectual in certain years. He seems to have had some idea 
that the disease was infective, as he recommends changing seed and 
suggests that results obtained by sowing the salvaged wheat might 
have been due to the fact that the wheat came from a locality where 
there was no smut. 
Abbé Pluche (309) applies the term ‘‘smut’’ to what is unquestion- 
ably rust. This disease he attributes to the burning effect of the 
sun’s rays which are concentrated by the small drops of dew or rain. 
Bunt, which he describes as a ‘‘ black meal,”’ results, he believes, from 
a failure of fertilization of the ovaries of the affected heads. 
C. F. Meyer (269) believes ‘‘bunt dust” to be infective and thinks 
it acts by producing a fermentation of the sap. He advises treating — 
with lime. 
Aucante (27) maintains that treatment of the seed with lime and 
arsenic, as well as with corrosive sublimate, is useless and that it 
is injurious to germination. He believes smut to be due to atmos- 
pheric conditions. It is uncertain whether Aucante refers to loose 
smut or bunt, or whether he regards them as one. The article is 
interesting chiefly because it contains the first mention of either 
arsenic or corrosive sublimate as a treating medium. 
J. H. Ritter (330), in response to Aucante’s article, holds that the 
bunt dust is infective, but that bunt production is influenced by 
growth conditions under which the seed grain matures. He advises 
(1) sowing well-ripened and well-dried seed; (2) treating with a 
mixture of salt, Belupotae lime, and wood ashes; and (3) in the long 
months sowing in the forenoon, in the short months in the afternoon. 
THE TILLET-TO-KUHN PERIOD. 
In 1755, Abbé Tillet (370) proved by experiment the infective 
character of the bunt dust, thus establishing the first real step toward 
the discovery of the true cause of bunt. Tuillet sowed seed artificially 
blackened with bunt spores alongside of rows sown to clean seed and 
obtained very much bunt in the former and perfectly sound wheat 
in the latter. He repeated his experiments at Vernilles in 1759 and 
obtained the same results. The writers have been unable to find a 
copy of Tillet’s original paper in the United States; consequently, 
they have been contiellegt to rely on such commentaries as are avail- 
able. Comments pro and con regarding his conclusions furnished a 
large part of the literature on the subject from 1760 to 1800. Tillet’s 
work and conclusions were imperfect in two respects: (1) He did 
not recognize Tilletia as a parasite or even as a fungus, notwith- 
standing the fact that he discovered the contents of bunt balls to be 
of uniform size and shape. (2) He regarded bunt and loose smut 
as differing only in degree, or merely as different stages of develop- 
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