Mar. 22, 1924 
Nematode Disease Caused by Tylenchus tritici 
945 
to two lots of sparrows. At various intervals of time after feeding, the 
feces of the first lot were examined and some of the birds in the other 
lot were killed and the contents of the digestive tract examined. Very 
rarely were any live larvae found in the feces or near the end of the 
alimentary tract and then only in very small numbers. It was con¬ 
cluded from this that birds are relatively unimportant in spreading the 
nematode disease. 
In the nematode-infested districts it is a common practice to feed the 
gall-infested wheat screenings to farm animals. An experiment was 
conducted in cooperation with the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment 
Station, at Madison, Wis., in 1921-22 to determine whether the organ¬ 
isms survive passage through the digestive tract of farm animals and 
remain capable of attacking wheat grown on land to which the manure 
is later applied. Two horses, two cows, eight hogs, four sheep, and 
twelve chickens were used in the experiment. In each case the different 
kinds of animals were divided into two groups. The first group received 
about a pint of whole nematode galls mixed with its daily feed. The 
second group received an equal quantity of ground galls. Small quanti¬ 
ties of the manure from each of the first groups of animals were examined 
for the presence of galls but only in the excreta of the horse, cow, and 
hog were any found (Table XVI). The recovered galls were examined 
and nearly two-thirds of them were found empty while the rest con¬ 
tained only dead larvae, most of which were in the first stages of de¬ 
composition. This seemed to indicate that the nematodes failed to sur¬ 
vive passage through the alimentary tract of these animals. 
Table XVI. —Number and condition of galls and larvae voided by farm animals fed 
whole galls, Madison, Wis., IQ 22 
The feeding was continued for a week. The manure from the horses, 
cows, and hogs was collected daily and stored in separate heaps. The 
chicken manure was collected from the dropping board at the end of the 
week and divided into two lots: One lot was stored in a box for six weeks 
and the other lot was immediately applied to the land. The sheep manure 
was of little value in this experiment as nematode-infested feed became 
scattered about the sheep stall by the animals while feeding. The manure 
from the different animals in each lot was spread upon small plats and 
spaded into the soil. Turkey wheat was then sown on these plats on 
September 7. 
Four control plats also were sown. On the first, uninfested manure was 
applied and uninfested seed was sown. On the second, uninfested manure 
was applied and infested seed sown. On the third plat barnyard manure 
artificially infested with galls was applied and uninfested seed was sown. 
