TREATMENT OF STINKING SMUT IN WHEAT. 
'i 
was consulted. It was found that a great number of reme¬ 
dies have been tried, but it was hard to decide which was 
best. The object then in view was to obtain the best 
remedy that was cheap and easy to use. Many experiments 
have been performed with the hot water treatment. This 
is a good remedy but it is inconvenient to use; the water 
must be at just such a temperature, if below 130 F, it will 
not kill the smut, if above 140 F, it destroys the germinat¬ 
ing power of the gram. Taking into account the heating of 
the water, the cost of this treatment is about as great as 
other remedies which give good results and which are much 
easier to use. 
Smut seems to be worse some years than others. Some 
experimenters say that this is because of the amount of 
moisture in the soil, some years being so dry that all the 
smut spores cannot germinate. Varying amounts of moist¬ 
ure probably have an influence on the disease, but since the 
spores germinate with the grain the smut will most likely 
germinate if the grain does. It is of the authors’ belief that 
variation in the amount of smut depends more upon the seed 
that is used. Many farmers after growing wheat free from 
smut a few years think it is useless to treat and consequent¬ 
ly stop, or if they do treat, the operation is carried out very 
carelessly; this neglect is what gives the smut a chance, so 
allowing the disease to be more plentiful some years than 
others. 
Occasional reports come to the Department from all 
over Colorado that smut has destroyed a whole crop of 
wheat, and numerous cases where the crop is badly affected. 
To the unobserving person this gram looks as well as any, 
while it is in the shock, but when the threshing time comes 
a large part of the supposed grain is blown on the straw pile 
in the form of smut spores, some of the spores lodge on the 
grain, and some pass out as whole kernels in which the out¬ 
side covering has not been broken and is hauled off with 
the grain. 
