TREATMENTS OF SEED WHEAT FOR LOOSE SMUT 19 
greatly decreased the rate of penetration. Agitation of the water 
alone therefore appears hardly practicable. It would seem, however, 
that agitation of the sacks would be necessary only for a short time 
at the beginning of the treatment, and that it could be discontinued 
as soon as the temperature throughout the mass of sacked wheat 
reached the temperature of the treatment bath. In the application of 
the 10-minute bath of the modified hot-water treatment, for example, 
agitation of the sacks in the water at 54° C. undoubtedly effects rapid 
penetration of the heat: otherwise the successful control of loose smut 
would not be so uniformly obtained. 
Single-bath treatments could not be employed at central or com- 
munity plants as usually equipped without a material reduction in the 
daily output of the plants. The successful adoption of treatments of 
this nature, therefore, seems dependent upon the development of 
practical methods and machinery which will facilitate their applica- 
tion. 
The market offers two kinds of machines which could be used in 
combination to treat large quantities of wheat by the single-bath 
method and to dry the seed so treated. The first kind frequently 
is used in canneries and is equipped to carry seeds of various kinds 
through hot water by means of endless belts or screw conveyers. 
The rate of intake and discharge of the seeds, the temperature oi the 
water, and the speed of the conveyers may be definitely fixed by 
mechanical regulators. Grain thus treated could then be passed 
through a machine of the second type referred to, a rotary grain drier. 
Here drying is effected by currents of hot air as the grain slowly 
passes through a revolving cylinder. The rate of drying, within 
limits, may be automatically controlled by regulation of the air 
temperature and the speed of the revolving cylinder. Under our 
present system of seed treatment, however, the use of machines of 
this kind would involve a very high overhead expense. This would 
foliow because the machines would be used only for a short period 
prior to sowing and because their efficiency would be reduced by the 
necessity of treating many small seed lots and of keeping each lot 
separate. 
STEAM TREATMENTS 
One of the chief objections to hot-water treatment is the fact that 
the grain becomes wet and swollen. If the treated wheat is spread to 
dry before sowing, the procedure involves time, labor, space, and some 
risk of loss through sprouting or freezing. If it is planned to sow 
shortly after treatment, some difficulties also may be encountered: (1) 
The weather may not permit: (2) it is difficult to adjust accurately 
the rate of seeding of the swollen gram, and thin stands frequently 
result: (3) the water in the seed causes it to germinate independently 
of the soil moisture, and if dry weather follows seeding the stand may 
be injured severely; and (4) the practice tends to congest the work of 
treatment when it is done at a community seed-treatment plant. 
Any net gain which otherwise might result from treatment thus may 
be reduced or resolved into an actual loss. 
A means for satisfactorily drying treated wheat would do much to 
popularize control through elimination of the difficulties enumerated. 
However, a practical machine for drying treated wheat for use, par- 
ticularly at seed-treatment plants, has not been developed. It would 
be necessary to dry separately each lot of grain treated, in order to 
