Se 
SMUT. 241 
ann Number of Bushels of 
Specific Salts ga in iy , ney Cwts. of straw 
LIQUIDS EMPLOYED. gravity Off tives sheaves.| peracre, | Per acre 
Aol RR A B A B 
Solution of potash, 3 : 1°357 1 SL Wels Gs 1'3*60) 3626) 29-1 
Kalida ies muriate of potash, de 1:097 3}, 208) (12025). 1021 1) 36:0 | 2d 
SRG essa nitrate of potash (saltpetre), . 1:080 i 115 23°83) | 14-3) 1 36:98) Sil:9 
sais eteeestnes bc soda, . i 5 6 : 1:056 9 LOS 20-20 sr 3056!) 926-7 
ee SE AE AT 3 muriate of soda (common salt), 1:089 == 290 QAO TASS a VATE F833 
see ctschtose sat sulphate of soda (glauber salt), 1-047 12 241 |21°6;).12:3'| 38:5 | 927-8 
aise Ne setsara eee muriate of ammonia(sal ammoniac),| 1-026 1 150 | 19°38 | 17:6 | 35:4 | 30-2 
SC See peas common soot, : 1:025 == 123 PAN) |) alilodh |) BYE) || Wes) 
ftR LER lime, saturated, : 1003 — 2 2M 9 i245 | 38s 2539 
sata urdataty omelats nitric acid (aquafortis), : 1:016 | Theseed treated with this acid did not vegetate 
ode cuvech eames muriatic acid (spirit of salt), . 1-011 — 136 | 20°77 { 161 [ 35:7 | 34-1 
Bh esease sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), . 1-050 - - 204 | 17°38 | 35°4 | 37-1 
Dry, in its natural state, : c a 6] 1323) 20:38 Lae sos i silo: 
Washed in common water, - unit Mone 107 | — 18:3 | — | 35°8 
“The experiments of Mr. Bevan,” remarks 
Mr. George W. Johnson, “indicate that lime 
| water is the most effective of these preparations ; 
and if this be adopted, it may be prepared by 
| mixing one pound of fresh lime with three gal- 
lons of boiling water, allowing these to stand for 
two hours, and the clear liquor then to be poured 
off, and immediately used. In this liquor the 
wheat should be soaked for twelve hours, stirred 
twice or thrice during the time, and then mixed, 
upon a floor, with the powder made by pouring 
| three gallons of boiling water upon five pounds 
of lime. 
I have had no experience of the effects 
of lime-water as a preventive of the smut; but 
with stale urine and a solution of common salt, 
I have witnessed numerous and extensive expe- 
riments. The results, without exception, were 
favourable and nearly similar; and this being 
the case, a preference is to be given to common 
salt, as being decidedly the most cleanly and the 
least disgusting. The mode J have observed to 
be the most effective, is to wash the seed with 
| pure water, pouring this off with all the floating 
grains, and then allowing the seed to soak for 
twelve hours in a solution of common salt, hay- 
ing a strength, or specific gravity, sufficient to 
float a common hen’s egg.” A solution of sul- 
phate of soda, in co-operation with an applica- 
_ tion of lime, was found by M. de Dombasle, after 
many experiments, to be the most efficient steep. 
The solution requires about 173 Ib. of the sulphate 
in 22 imperial gallons of water; and as this salt 
_ does not very readily dissolve, the solution ought 
to be commenced a day or so before it is wanted, 
and frequently stirred till all the salt is dis- 
solved. “The grain is to be formed in heaps on 
a floor, which are to be completely moistened 
with the above wash by means of a watering pan 
with a rose head. During the time the wash is 
being poured over the heaps of grain, they must 
he kept constantly stirred about by means of 
wooden shovels, till the whole be perfectly moist, 
_ which is known by the wash running from the 
_ heaps after they are sufficiently saturated. After 
the grain is well moistened, lime in powder is to 
be immediately thrown over the heaps, in the 
_ proportion of nearly 44 Ibs. to the 22 gallons, im- 
IV. 
perial, of grain; this is done gradually, while the 
grain is to be turned over in every direction, so 
that the whole may be intimately combined. 
When this is done, the grain may be either sown 
immediately, or kept for some days, in which 
case it may be turned over every three or four 
days.” 
The use of any kind of steep, however, is a pre- 
ventive of smut only as propagated by the adhe- 
sion of spores to the grains of the seed-corn, and 
can have no efficiency whatever against the ger- 
mination of spores which lie lodged in the soil in- 
dependently of the seed-corn. “ Although it is 
very apparent,” says Mr. George W. Johnson, “that | 
the smut is generally imparted to a wheat crop by 
the agency of the seed sown, yet Iam by no means 
of opinion that this is the only source of infection. | 
I have kept ears of wheat that were covered and | 
destroyed by the Uredo, during more than twelve | 
months, in a situation where they experienced | 
the vicissitudes of temperature during all the 
seasons, unprotected by more than the paper en- — 
velope in which they were suspended in an out- | 
Yet when the Uredo that had been thus — 
exposed was mixed with healthy, well-washed © 
house. 
seed-wheat, this produced diseased plants in a 
triplicate proportion more numerous than that | 
not so mixed. This experiment demonstrates that 
frost and drought, acting in concert with a damp 
atmosphere, do not destroy the vegetating power 
of the Uredo’s seed. Such being the fact, why 
may not this seed remain in the soil ready to 
impart the plague? We know that, owing to its 
extreme lightness, this seed floats buoyantly in 
the air, and may be carried by winds to distant 
soils, which, in the autumn of the same year, 
before any extremity of cold has been endured, 
will have to bear the wheat crop for the follow- 
ing harvest. The opinion that the soil is one 
source of infection, is sustained by the fact that 
fields in the vicinity of the sea are rarely injured, 
and never extensively, by the ravages of the smut. 
Such soils are impregnated more than any other 
with common salt, and the effect of this saline 
compound upon the Uredo has been noticed 
already.” The spores of Uvedo segetum, too, are 
so generally shed and dispersed before the har- 
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