SMILACINA. 
or not at all; its dry dung passes in very small, 
hard balls. Soon after the first attack of fever, 
there appear on all the bare parts of the body, 
particularly about the mouth, eyes, and on the 
inner surface of the leg and belly, and the under 
part of the tail, numerous small spots, like flea- 
bites, which in eight or nine days come more out 
in small pimples, and in form like the head of 
small-pox. As the spots become more numerous, 
the swelling of the head increases, so much so 
that the animal can but with difficulty open its 
mouth and eyes; the lumps that have formed 
fill, in three or four days, with a pale, clear, 
white matter. The pustules now formed are of 
a good sort, and differ in size up to that of a pea. 
They are found mostly on the parts of the body 
with no wool on, but they may be even found 
under the wool. The malignant pustules are found 
close together, of a red, violet, blue-blackish, or 
brown-red colour, with a blue margin ; they are 
broad, flat, and sunk in, and emit an offensive 
smell. The animal stands unsteady, with droop- 
ing and swollen head, and closed eye; the nos- 
trils are stopped up with a tough, viscous mat- 
ter, smelling like carrion; it breathes very short 
and with difficulty, snorts with open mouth, 
gnashes its teeth, and its evacuations emit a 
very offensive odour ; in this latter state, a cure 
is impossible. On the first attack of the com- 
mon ‘variola,’ the animal must be well taken 
care of, and must not be exposed to cold or wet, 
and drinks must be administered to it of salts, 
bitters, and spices. Asa preventative, inocula- 
tion with healthy matter, if obtainable, is the 
best, as thereby the inoculated animal throws 
out only a few of the pustules, the sickness from 
which it easily gets over, and is then completely 
protected from the attacks of the disease.” Mr. 
Simonds, the lecturer on cattle pathology, in the 
Royal Veterinary College, also says that inocula- 
tion may be said to be our chief means of con- 
trolling the disease. Vaccination has been tried, 
but is not to be depended upon. The practical 
results are, that farmers should spare no pains to 
avoid buying infected sheep,—that they should 
invariably keep all newly bought animals sepa- 
rate from their own stock, until time shall have 
been afforded for the development of disease, if 
it exists,—and finally, that should the disease 
appear, not a moment should be lost in calling 
in the veterinary surgeon, and subjecting the 
whole flock to inoculation. 
SMEARING. See Satvine. 
SMELL. See Noss. | 
SMILACINA. A genus of hardy, ornamental, 
perennial-rooted, herbaceous plants, of the smilax 
order. Nine species, varying in height from 3 to 
25 inches, and carrying either white or yellow 
flowers in summer, have been introduced to 
Britain, principally from North America; and 
all love a soil of sandy loam or of somewhat 
humous loam, and are propagated by division of 
the root. 
SMUT. 
SMILAX. A genus of climbing, monocoty- 
ledonous, exotic plants, constituting the type of 
the natural order Smilaceew. This order is very 
nearly allied to the asphodel family, differing from 
it principally in the trifid style and the mem- 
branous seed-envelopes. About a dozen hothouse 
species, about a score of greenhouse species, and 
about 80 hardy species at present occur in British 
collections, and are distributed among 12 genera. 
A considerable number are highly ornamental or 
otherwise popularly interesting; and a few are 
valuably medicinal. 
Upwards of 40 species of the genus smilax have 
been introduced to Britain; and nearly 30 more 
are known. All or almost all are remarkable for 
the twining habit of their stems, and for the 
resemblance of their leaves to those of dicoty- 
ledonous plants. Some have prickly stems, and 
some unarmed stems; and some of both the 
prickly and the unarmed are angular, and others 
terete. Four of the most remarkable species are 
noticed in the article SARSAPARILLA; and almost 
all the other species are interesting only to 
botanists. 
SMITHIA. A small genus of interesting, exo- 
tic, annual plants, of the hedysarum division of 
the leguminous order. Three trailing, yellow- 
flowered, late-blooming species, the sensitive, the 
twin-flowered, and the crowded, have been intro- 
duced to Britain,—the last from Australia, and 
the other two from India. 
SMUT. A disease of the ears of growing corn, 
filling the grain with a fine sooty-looking powder 
in the room of farina. It arises entirely from 
two minute coniomycetous fungi,—the Uvredo 
segetum and the Uredo fetida; but it attacks all 
sorts of corn, and presents a great diversity of 
appearance, and bears a number of different 
popular names, and has been erroneously ascribed, 
by all classes of cultivators, to a great diversity 
of causes. Some farmers, seeing only a very few 
ears of a crop perceptibly affected with smut, 
regard the evil as of small consequence, and are 
totally unaware that when no more than one 
smutted ear can be found in a sheaf, the straw 
of the apparently sound plants may want so 
much as one-third of its average weight, and 
the grain so much as three-sevenths; and other 
farmers, who may have a correct enough opinion 
of the mischievousness of smut, are so misled by 
false notions of its cause as either to reject all 
suitable preventives and remedies of it, or to 
adopt them empirically and without sufficient 
confidence and vigour. 
Some of the many erroneous causes which have 
been assigned for smut have no connexion with 
it whatever; and others are mere contingencies 
which either aggravate its symptoms or accelerate 
its progress. One alleged cause is deficient fecun- 
dity, in consequence either of the pollen being 
washed away with rains, or of its undergoing 
some chemical change of a putrefactive nature; 
but smut is found to affect the organs of fructifi- 
2 ee eee ey 
Sgr NEI Ue NATE 
