A NOTE ON INDIAN WHEAT-RUSTS. 
123 
Launea asplenifolia vas not found, another species of Launea was 
ascertained to be general in the Central Provinces ; this species was 
in Rajputana discovered to be capable of carrying at least one stage 
ot this blight. Then it is now known that Launea asplenifolia 
occurs at Ujain, which means that, further to the west, it occurs as far 
south as, and in precisely the soil it would find at, Jabalpur. And, 
besides, it does not follow that the blight most destructive in one place 
or in a given season is that most destructive elsewhere or in another 
season. The cultivators questioned regarding the probable cause of 
the “ rusting'* at Mozuffarpur, insisted that the meteorological con- 
ditions of the past cold-season never failed to induce it. At Gaya, 
on the other hand, the belief was that conditions such as were ex- 
perienced last cold-weather are precisely those that ensure exemption 
from the blight. One possible explanation of this discrepancy is 
doubtless that the blights which the cultivators had in their minds 
may be different ones. But this is certainly not the only explanation, 
and in no case is it quite a sufficient one. Fortunately for the culti- 
vator, but unfortunately for our enquiry, there was practically no 
rust this year outside Bengal and North Behar, But even during the 
journey described above, it was possible this year to discover that 
different blights may on occasions lead to practical destruction of the 
wheat crop. At Maharajpur near Jabalpur a cultivator described with 
all the accuracy born of familiar and sad experience the wilting and 
inrolling of the tutt of leaves at the base of the young wheat plant, 
the rusty spotting of the leaves above, the reddening of the ground 
and the shrivelling of the grain characteristic of the Shibpur blight. 
It ate up the fields like fire was the striking phrase with which 
he concluded his narrative of the last rust epidemic in Central India. 
At Khandwa, on the other hand, the wheat being there also this 
year equally free from rust, the cultivators described the onset and 
progress of their last epidemic in altogether different terms, and though 
the force of the account was not at the time appreciated, the moment 
the wheat-field at Shibpur, when under the full influence of the 
Mozufferpur Rust, '' was seen, it was realized that the Khandwa 
account may have been as graphic and probably as accurate as the 
account obtained at Jabalpur, since here too was a prevalent blight 
with general features quite as striking as, and yet totally unlike, 
those of the earlier one. It did not, however, follow that what had 
been described at Khandwa was this particular rust. On the contrary 
the fact that this— the Mozufferpur Rust — does not apparently, even 
in bad cases, very seriously affect the health of the plant, whereas 
the blight described by the cultivators at Khandwa was said to have 
