Weeih ; Diseases of Plants. 
22 0 
occasionally injure them. These plants might be destroyed. To plough up 
such land would of course be out of the question. 
“ The Banunculus which abounds in many good pastures is well known to 
lose its acridity when made into hay, and I have never yet heard of a hay 
dealer objecting to this plant. If you were to plough up as directed, many 
fresh plants would spring up in the new grass from dormant seed and the 
meadow would be as full of buttercups as before, but minus the good and 
valuable turf. Animals reject these plants when freshly in flower, but as the 
season advances they gradually eat them, hence the bare state of the meadow 
(when properly grazed) in the autumn. 
“ Ranunculus hulbosus is the most general in ordinary pastures. This is 
commonly kept in check by rooks which gi-ub them out and eat them. Repens 
and acris are not so common.” 
The writer allows that R. Flammula is no doubt bad for 
young stock, in the case mentioned it was bad for a milch cow. 
This particular case in the report was made the occasion of a 
warning as to buttercups in pastures. It is well known that 
buttercups lose their acridity in hay, but no one doubts that 
when the plant is growing in the field it is acrid. That in good 
pastures buttercups abound is iinhappily too true, but every 
buttercup in a pasture is a defect. It is a weed where a good 
grass should be, and more, it is a dangei'ous weed which, if 
swallowed in any quantity by the feeding animal may, as it has 
often done in the past, cause injury. The assertion that 
ploughing and resowing a meadow — not where Ranunculus 
Flammula was growing, which was not suggested, but — where 
buttercups abound is not good “ Practice with Science ” needs 
some modification. 
Diseases of Plants. 
The damp and cold summer was most favourable to the 
growth of fungi, and a considerable number of inquiries were 
received in regard to injuries caused by these parasites. 
Toadstools, species of Agaricus, have been frequent in 
lawns. They find in the humus of the soil sufficient food for 
their nourishment and do not injure the vegetation. 
Sevei’al cases of rust on the leaves of the pear tree were 
reported upon, and of the earlier stage when it lives on the 
common savine, Juniperus sabina Linn. Peach leaves 
attacked by Exoascus deformans Berk, causing leaf curl, were 
received and treatment recommended. The leaves of black 
currant were injured by Gloeosporium curvatum, commonly 
called shot hole fungus from the roundish holes it makes in 
the leaves. It is deserving of notice that, altliough the 
dreaded disease of the American Gooseberry Mildew is still 
present in localities from which it was sent last year, no 
specimens have reached the laboratory. 
A crop of sainfoin was destroyed in patches, and it was 
found that the injury was caused by the fungus Sclerotinia 
ciborioides Rehm, well known to cause sickness in red clover. 
VOL. 68. Q 
