hedges : may not these often be a source of infection for the corn? 
^lany a summer is unsuited to the development of these fungoid 
growths, but the duty is none the less urgent to keep the hedge- 
rows and banks closely trimmed, and so to destroy a possible, if 
not a probable, source of disease. 
On another point to which I desire to call the attention of 
farmers and of botanists I cannot speak positively, but I think 
that it is worthy of serious consideration whether Mildew may not 
be propagated bj^ the use of manure made from infected straw. It 
is quite possible that when the manure is allowed to ferment by 
being turned ovei’, both the spores and the mycelium may be 
destroyed by the heat generated, but the question arises Avhether 
when the manure is spread over the land in a raw state, jjartly 
owing to the desire to save labour, partly owing to the well-grounded 
fear that, by overheating, some of the important constituents 
.should be dissipated in the air, the spores of tlie Mildew may not 
infect the first leaves of the Wheat plant. 
I cannot attempt an exhaustive description of all the fungoid 
diseases of our cereals, but I cannot pass over two others which are 
not uncommon, thougli their ravages have been almost entirely 
counteracted by the care with whicli the seed corn is dressed before 
it is sown. These two fungi differ from that which I have described 
in that they are more easily removed from the seed corn, and that 
their vitality is destroyed by the chemical action of the substances 
with which the corn is dressed. 
One of these, the “true Smut ” {Ustilago segeium), is to be found 
just as the corn is losing its green colour ; it causes the ear to look 
(piite black, and wholly prevents the development of the grain in 
the ear. I suppose that it is owing to this fact that these blighted 
ears have been ignorantly supposed to be the male plant of the 
Wheat— I say ignorantly, for the youngest botanist knows that our 
cereals are not dioecious plants. The dressing of the seed renders 
this fungus so rare, comparatively speaking, that it causes no 
appreciable diminution to the yield of the crop, and as the fungus 
thrives best on those plants which are abnormally vigorous, the 
farmer often looks upon the existence of a few smutted ears as an 
earnest of an abundant yield of corn. 
The other fungus is erroneously called “Smut;” its correct name 
is “ Bunt,” or “ Bladder-brand botanically, Tilletia cartes ; it is 
