72 
PRELIMINARY NOTES ON A NEW AND DESTRUCTIVE 
OAT DISEASE. 
By B. T. Galloway and E. A. Southworth. 
During the months of May and June we received repeated complaints 
and inquiries concerning a mysterious oat disease which then threat¬ 
ened to destroy the entire crop of the eastern and central States. 
During the month of May, when the oats were from 6 inches to afoot 
in height, the leaves suddenly began to turn brown and die at the tips. 
The lower leaves were attacked first and the brown color soqn extended 
their entire length. In a very short time all the leaves were dead, or 
partially brown, and the prospects were that the plants would die and 
the oat crop be a total failure. About the middle of June, however, the 
fields began to revive, the oats put out some few fresh green leaves, most 
of them headed out, and by the first of July many of the fields appeared 
in a fair condition on superficial observation. In reality, however, the 
losses from the disease will amount to from 35 to 75 per cent, of the crop, 
according to the locality. Very discouraging losses are reported from 
the State of Pennsylvania, where there is probably not a healthy oat 
field to be found. Kentucky and Tennessee have suffered even more, 
their present averages as reported to the Statistical Division being the 
lowest ever reported from any State for a staple crop. 
The disease extends from Kew England to Georgia, and from the 
Atlantic coast as far west as Indiana and Illinois. It is not present in 
Michigan. All the agents for the Statistical Division agree in ascribing 
the cause of this remarkable decline in the oat crop to the same thing, 
namely, a “blight” or “rust” which struck the fields in May. 
The disease prevented the oats from stooling well, and it frequently 
happened that all the shoots but the main one of a stool were killed. 
As a result the oats are very thin, and in riding along by a field 
even at a considerable distance one can see to the ground between 
the drill rows when the oats are in full head. Besides this the losses 
are augmented by the fact that the amount of green foliage which de¬ 
veloped after the attack was not sufficient to produce a strong growth 
of the surviving stalks, nor to supply material for a good-sized head; 
the straw is therefore short and light and the heads small. The heads 
do not seem to be well filled, and threshing will probably reveal a lighter 
yield than farmers themselves expect. 
Such a universal disease can be attributed to no deterioration of soil 
or lack of cultivation, although there is no doubt that good cultivation 
will produce better oats than poor, even when they are diseased. 
The disease has attacked oats on the best as well as on the poorest 
soils, fields that were fertilized as well as those that were not. The 
oats are best, however, in level well cultivated and well drained fields, 
while they are poorest in low, wet spots and on hillsides and other 
