SMYRNIUM. 
vesting of the crop, that they may be supposed to 
lie lodged in immense numbers in every part of 
the field or farm or district where they were pro- 
duced ; and even in so far as they adhere to the 
grains of barley and oats in the same way in 
which those of Uredo fotida adhere to the grains 
of wheat, they have such a peculiarly strong hold 
in connexion with the integuments of these 
grains that they cannot very readily be reduced 
or killed by means of steeps. As regards some 
smutted wheat lands, therefore, and especially 
as regards all smutted barley lands and all smut- 
ted oat lands, other preventives and remedies 
must be brought into requisition, and should be 
such as to secure the utmost possible cleanness 
of both the seed-corn and the land, and will, after 
all, be found incompetent to effect an entire cure. 
“Since the smut-fungus does not confine its 
attacks to corn, but is also found in the grasses 
which grow in pastures and by the road-side,” 
says Professor Henslow, “a plentiful supply of 
sporules will always be kept up, to warrant our 
believing that we shall never expunge this species 
| from the British Flora. Still we may feel assured 
that precautionary measures may materially 
lessen an evil which cannot be wholly avoided. 
Since the sporules of the two fungi which pro- 
duce bunt and smut enter the plants they attack 
by absorption at the roots, and since they are 
buried with those seeds to whose surface they 
have attached themselves,—it is evident that too 
great care cannot be bestowed in procuring clean 
seed, or in purifying such as may accidentally be 
infected. From:a variety of considerations, it 
has always appeared to me strange that prac- 
tical agriculturists are accustomed to pay so 
little attention to the raising of pure seed-crops. 
There may be reasons, which I do not properly 
appreciate, that would render it inexpedient to 
cultivate a seed-crop apart from the rest of the 
produce raised on a farm; but I should have 
thought that it was always worth while for every 
farmer to set aside some portion of ground to be 
more carefully tended than the rest, for the pur- 
pose of securing good and perfectly clean seed. 
Among other reasons for such a practice, he 
would then be able to weed his crop from every 
plant infected with bunt or smut, before the 
fungi ripened.” The obtaining of seed-corn for 
any farm from other and distant soils is recom- 
mended by Tull, Donat, Lignerolle, and others ; 
but, however beneficial this may be for securing 
other desirable effects, it can be useful in regard 
to smut only when the seed-corn is brought 
from a district remarkably free from that disease. 
All the preventives and remedies which address 
themselves to the state of the land, or consist in 
special processes of georgy and special methods 
of culture, are the same in the case of smut as in 
the case of mildew. See the article Minprw. 
SMYRNIUM,—popularly Alevanders. A genus 
of herbaceous plants, of the umbelliferous order. 
|| The common species, Smyrnium olusatrum, grows 
SNAKE-ROOT. 
wild on the rocks by the sea-shore in many parts 
of Britain, and has a place in gardens as a culi- 
nary plant. Its root is biennial; its stem is fur- 
rowed, branched, and 3 or 4 feet high; its lower 
leaves resemble those of smallage, but are much 
larger, and have rounder and serrated lobes; its 
upper leaves are trifoliate, and similar in form 
to the lower, but smaller; its flowers grow in 
large umbels at the ends of the branches, and 
bloom in May and June; and its capsules are 
large and roundish, and contain each two. moon- 
shaped seeds. The whole plant has a strong warm 
taste; and its blanched stems are used in salads 
and soups. Crops are raised from seeds sown in 
spring in drills; and the plants may either 
remain or be transplanted into shallow drills at | | 
distances of 15 or 18 inches from drill to drill | 
and of 5 or 6 from plant to plant, and must be 
earthed up in the same manner as celery.—Five 
or six ornamental species, all hardy and either 
biennials or perennials, and varying in height 
from 12 to 40 inches, and mostly carrying flowers | 
of either yellowish or whitish colours, have been 
introduced to Britain from Caucasus, Cornice 
Europe, and North America. 
SNAG, The stump of a stem or lower part of || 
a branch left in very free pruning. 
SNAIL. See Suva. 
SNAIL-COD. A soft, silty deposit on the bot- 
tom of deep rivers, abounding in molluscs and 
shells, and serviceable as manure. See the article 
Sua-Oozp. 
SNAIL-FLOWER. The caracalla kidney-bean. 
See the article Kipnry-Bran. 
SNAKE. A tribe of ophidious reptiles. It 
comprises all serpents, whether venomous or non- | 
venomous, whose sub-caudal plates are arranged 
in pairs; and even exclusive of all venomous 
species, it Is so enormously numerous as to have 
put the ingenuity and inventiveness of naturalists 
severely to the test to subdivide and classify it. 
Eleven genera of non-venomous snakes are enu- 
merated by Cuvier. The common snake, Coluber 
natrix, is a native of Britain, and occurs in bushy 
places and in banks near water. It is from two 
to three feet long. Its back has a dusky colour; 
and its belly is beautifully variegated with black 
and bluish stripes. It has two rows of small 
serrated teeth ; but has no fang, and is perfectly 
harmless. It feeds on insects, frogs, field mice, 
harvest mice, and vegetable substances; and 
ought to be regarded as friendly to the farmer 
by destroying some of the pests of the field. See 
the article REpPTILEs. 
SNAKE-GOURD,—botanically 7vichosanthes. 
A genus of exotic, trailing, annual plants, of the 
cucumber order. Five or six white-flowered 
species have been introduced to British collec- 
tions from India and China; but they do not 
possess any particular interest. 
SNAKE-ROOT,—botanically Ophiorhiza. A 
tropical, ornamental, white-flowered, evergreen 
shrub of the madder family. It was introduced 
pe 
