36 
ON MILDEW, OR MELDEW. 
ART. VI.— MILDEW, OR MELDEW. 
After reading an essay in the last number of the Cabinet, 
headed "Blight on Wheat," I was induced to read what nu- 
merous authors had written on the subject of mildew, rust, 
and blight; but on reflection, in regard to the terms, it was 
thought best to expunge the latter, as too general and indefi- 
nite to be applied to a specific form of disease, the character of 
which is well known to farmers, though the cause is not well 
understood. We say, familiarly, that any species of grain, 
fruit, &c, that fails in arriving at perfection, is blighted, with- 
out any reference to the form, character or cause of the dis- 
ease or accident, which has given rise to the failure. 
The term mildew, or meldew, which I suspect was the ori- 
ginal word, is formed of the word met, which means honey, 
and dew, which needs no explanation ; the combined term be- 
ing, in plain English, honey dew, which, no doubt, took its de- 
signation from a sweet substance found on the surface of the 
wheat after it became diseased, and which is now believed to 
be the excrement of very small insects, which attack the plant 
after the hand of death has come upon it, and decomposition 
has commenced. The term rust needs no explanation to the 
farmer who has once suffered by this form of disease in his 
grain crop. These two terms indicate forms of disease, both 
of which, it is believed, proceed from one common cause, 
and are only slight modifications of the same disastrous ma- 
lady. 
Some of the authors which have been examined , ascribe the 
disease to great heat, some to hoar frost or cold after great 
heat, electricity, diseased seed, disease of the root of the 
plants, the presence of the barberry bush, fungi, insects, wind 
from particular quarters, and various other causes, all equally 
unsatisfactory. 
It is pleasant and satisfactory to be able to trace the diseases, 
