a less evil comparatively than Uredo fetida, it is 
a much greater one absolutely than most farmers 
suppose, 
Grain containing some mixture of smut has 
not been observed to injure fowls who eat it ; 
and yet the straw of smutted plants is asserted 
to be distasteful to cattle. The effect of the 
fungus upon the wholesomeness of crops, in fact, 
is little understood, and does not seem to have 
been tested by any good published experiments ; 
yet it may be pretty closely estimated by refer- 
' ence to the known chemical composition of 
smutted grain. ‘“ Chemical analysis has demon- 
strated that the Uredo segetum effects an entire 
decomposition of the vegetable constituents of 
the grain it infects, the saline constituents of the 
grain remaining nearly unaltered. Parmentier, 
Cornet, Girod Chantrans, Fourcroy, and Vau- 
quelin, have successively examined it, and the 
result of their researches is, that smutted grains 
of wheat are composed, first, of about one-third 
their own weight of a green, butyraceous, fetid, 
and acrid oil,—second, nearly one-fourth of a 
vegeto-animal substance, perfectly similar to 
that which comes from putrid gluten,—third, a 
black coal, one-fifth of their weight, similar to 
that which is found in all remnants of putrified 
organic compounds,—fourth, free phosphoric 
acid, amounting scarcely to more than ‘004 of the 
smut,—and fifth, phosphates of ammonia, mag- 
nesia, and lime, in the proportions of a few 
thousandths. ‘We must remark,’ say MM. 
Fourcroy and Vauquelin, ‘ that, in one examina- 
tion of putrified gluten, we found characters 
very similar to those of the smut of wheat ; and 
that the products of the one are so like those of 
the other, as to render it difficult, in certain cases, 
not to confound them together. It requires a 
man to be well practised in chemical experi- 
ments to discern the slight differences that exist 
between these two putrified matters, because the 
differences are only delicate shades, not easily 
discernible. The contagion attacks especially the 
gluten, and precedes, indeed prevents, the forma- 
tion of the starch ; since we know positively that 
this fecula, no traces of which are found in the 
smut of wheat, suffers no alteration from that 
septic process, which so powerfully attacks the 
glutinous substance.’ ”’ 
The Uredo fatida occurs only in the grain of 
wheat, and is a well known and much dreaded 
disease. It may be detected in the young seed, 
even in the very earliest states of the flower-bud ; 
and when fully ripe, it most frequently occupies 
the whole interior of the grain. “The earliest 
period at which I discovered it within the cavity 
of the ovule of a young plant of wheat,” says M. 
Bauer, “was sixteen days before the ear emerged 
from the hose, and about twenty days before the 
sound ears, springing from the same root, were 
in bloom. At that early stage, the inner cavity 
of the ovum is very small, and, after fecunda- 
tion, is filled with the albumen or farinaceous 
(SMUT. 
239 
substance of the seed, and already occupied by 
many young fungi, which from their jelly-like 
root or spawn, adhere to the membrane which 
lines the cavity, and from which they can be 
easily detached in small flakes, with that spawn. 
In that state, their very small pedicels may be 
distinctly seen. At first, the fungi are of a pure 
white colour; and when the ear emerges from 
its hose, the ovum is much enlarged, but still 
retains its original shape ; and the fungi rapidly 
multiplying, many of them have then nearly 
come to maturity, assumed a darker colour, and, 
having separated from the spawn, lie loose in the 
cavity of the ovum, The infected grains con- 
tinue growing, and the fungi continue to multi- 
ply till the sound grains have attained their full 
size and maturity, when the infected grains are 
easily distinguished from the sound ones, by 
their being generally larger and of a darker 
green colour ; and if opened, they appear to be 
filled to excess with these dark-coloured fungi. 
But the grains infected with the Uredo fetida 
very rarely burst, and these fungi are seldom 
found on the outside of the grain ; but if a grain 
be bruised, they readily emit their offensive 
smell, which is worse than that from putrid 
fish. When the sound grains are perfectly ripe 
and dry, and assume their light brown colour, 
the infected grains also change, but to a some- 
what darker brown, retaining, however, the same 
shape which the ovum had at its formation, the 
rudiments of the stigma also remaining unalter- 
ed.” The spores which fill the grain constitute 
a fine, black, disgusting, fetid powder, and amount 
to about four millions in a single grain, and may 
be easily distinguished and examined through a 
microscope, and have then the appearance of ar- 
ticulated globules growing in a bundled manner 
upon threads ; but the sporules which they con- 
tain, and which propagate the smut in the same 
general way in which seeds propagate pheno- 
gamous plants, are so surpassingly minute as to 
be scarcely distinguishable under very high 
powers of the microscope, appearing then only 
like a faint cloud or vapour in a puffy escape 
from the spores. 
The Uredo fetida not only destroys all the 
grains or plants which it directly attacks, but 
greatly deteriorates the value of the sound part 
of the general crop. The disgusting odour which 
it emits may be perceived on passing through a 
field where it prevails ; and becomes cohesive to 
the fingers and intolerable to the sense when an 
infected ear or two are broken in the hand ; 
and diffuses itself sufficiently through the sound 
grains by the contacts of growing and harvest- 
ing to render the flour made from them percep- 
tibly malodorous and comparatively unfit for 
bread. Ready purchasers, however, are found 
among the manufacturers of gingerbread, who 
have discovered that the treacle, and whatever 
else they mix up with it, effectually disguise the 
odour of the fungus; and while such a mode 
