42 
COEN. 
ridges (and which also would be the direction in which the heaps of 
dung would have been laid down), but the track of the disease” (as 
shown by the dotted parts) “ has no relation to the way in which the 
The two infested strips and three small patches are shown by dots. 
dung was laid down on the land. The otlier two fields marked 1886 
were Oats this year, a level crop and free from disease.” 
The continuance of this attack up to the maturity of the crop, or 
rather to the time when, if all had been well, it would have matured, 
was shown by the specimens of Oat-plants sent from Arniston, Gore- 
bridge, Mid Lothian, on Sept. 24th by Mr. Eobert Dundas, with the 
accompanying observations :— 
“ I enclose you a sample of Oat-roots from a field on my home 
farm, of which four acres out of twenty-two have been affected. The 
soil is a sandy clay ; the crop is Oats sown out with grass and Clover 
seeds after Turnips.” . . . 
The stems proved to be in some instances hollowed or filled with 
decayed matter down to the roots, and the inside of the side shoots 
was also occupied by decayed matter. On examining this damp 
powdery-like matter I found many Anguillulidce still alive and some eggs. 
In one of these I detected the developed wormlet folded on itself 
within. The Oats were much damaged, for many of the shoots were 
stunted and quite killed,—fairly gone in brown decay and black within, 
—and in this decayed matter I also found wormlets. 
In this case, and also in one or two others, there was presence of 
maggots of some kind of small two-wiuged fly in the infested stems, 
and in one instance this occurred to such an extent as to appear at 
first to be the reason of the plant going off; but the coincidence may 
