38 
COEN. 
“ The field where these specimens grew bore two good crops of hay 
last year. This year, when Oats were sown, we gave it 3 cwts. per 
acre of an equal mixture of sulphate of ammonia and superphosphate. 
Considering the dry cold season it is a fair crop, where free of disease. 
The last white crop waschiefiy Wheat, but about five acres were Oats, 
and it is there the disease is worst, showing that growing the same 
kind of crop too frequently is the cause of the disease. It has 
occurred to me that it might be a good plan to pickle the seed with 
blue-stone, the way we do with Wheat.” 
On examination of the Oat-plants forwarded by Mr. Watson I 
found them, as usual in this attack, swollen at the base, which was 
surrounded with small shoots, contorted from being checked in growth, 
and bent back to and fro on themselves. The first of these contorted 
shoots which I opened was slightly spongy in the middle, and a 
scraping from this surface showed the presence of Angnilhdidce. In 
scraping off the surface of the leaves as I removed the sheathing of the 
diseased bulb, I found just a few Eelworms, and in the small central 
cavity containing the minute growth, which I take to represent the 
future ear, I found a white mouldy look on the side of the chamber, 
which, on being scraped off and examined under the microscope, 
proved to contain many Eelworms, mostly of rather small size. I 
also found them in the decayed matter in the centre of the stem of this 
plant, lower down, about ground-level. 
About ten days later (that is, on July 26th) specimens of diseased 
Oat plants were sent by Mr. T. H. Gundy from the Ainsty Estate 
Office, Wetherby, with the mention that they were samples of the 
condition of about five acres of Oats taken out of the centre of a large 
field. This field was on magnesian limestone, with a fair depth of 
soil,—in Turnip the year before (pulled off) ; these were a splendid 
crop, grown with fold-yard manure from covered yards. This part of 
the field was manured again for these Oats, it being very poor and 
lying near the rock ; it had only come into the writer’s possession in 
the previous year. The Oats came well, but went back after two 
months of continuous dry weather. These Oats were very badly in¬ 
fested with Eelworms of various sizes ; they swarmed too numerously 
to be counted, and one egg at least was visible. The diseased plants 
were as usual “ tulip-rooted ” in shape at the base with distorted shoots 
round ; also on one stem there was a gall of twisted shoot growing 
from it a little above the base. 
On July 19th Mr. Eichard Brown furnished me with samples of 
diseased Oat-plants taken from two fields at Hill House, Kirk Newton, 
Mid Lothian. The plants from one field were much worse infested 
and their growth much more injured than those from the other. In 
those from the first-named field I found the plants were about six to 
