BARBERRY. 
cies are best propagated by grafting; but all the 
other species are propagated in the same method 
of layering as the common species. 
The barberry has long—though most eminent 
phytologists think it has unjustly—had the bad 
fame of exerting a poisonous influence upon corn, 
particularly upon wheat. “This,” says Marshall, 
“is a circumstance which has been long known 
to the common farmers in different parts of the 
kingdom, especially in Norfolk, where the farmers 
are more observant and much more enlightened 
than those useful members of society generally 
are. The idea, nevertheless, has been treated by 
theoretical writers on husbandry as chimerical 
and superstitious, and has been brought forward 
as one of those vulgar errors of farmers which 
- ought to induce gentlemen and men of genius to 
rescue so useful a science as that of agriculture 
out of the hands of ignorance. Being, however, 
always ready to hear the opinion of professional 
men, and having been assured by many sensible 
- farmers of the truth of this matter, we had a few 
years ago a barberry bush planted, in the month 
of February, in the centre of a large piece of 
wheat. No obvious effect took place until the 
corn began to change its colour before harvest, 
when a long blackening stripe became so conspi- 
cuous amongst the growing whiteness of the 
wheat, that it might have been distinguished at 
a mile’s distance. It resembled the tail of a 
comet, the bush representing the comet itself; 
and what rendered the experiment striking, 
whilst on one side the effect did not reach more 
than three or four feet, on the opposite side it 
was obvious to the distance of ten or twelve 
yards, notwithstanding the top of the shrub 
planted was not much larger than the head. At 
harvest, the ears of wheat which grew in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of the bush, stood erect, 
the grains shrivelled and empty ; as the distance 
from the barberry increased, the effect lessened, 
vanishing imperceptibly ; whilst the grain of the 
rest of the field was of a good quality.” The 
Rey. Dr. Singer, the author of the Agricultural 
Report of Dumfries-shire, in a short paper among 
the published Transactions of the Highland So- 
ciety, states an apparently strong fact or two re- 
specting the devastations of rust or mildew on 
corn-crops, and the identification of the cause of 
it with the influence of the barberry. “On one 
farm alone,” says he, “that of Kirkbank, on the 
estate of Annandale, Mr. John Aitken, the re- 
spectable tenant, lost about £100 in his oat crops 
yearly ; and altogether the damage in this county 
was, without doubt, considerably above £1,000 
yearly. The views of Sir Joseph Banks, and of 
some intelligent practical farmers, relative to the 
evil influence of the Berberis vulgaris, induced 
the late Admiral Sir William Johnstone Hope to 
give orders for the total extirpation of the bar- 
berry bushes which grew intermixed with thorns 
in the hedge-rows; and since that was done, and 
for above twenty years, no such distemper has 
327 
appeared in these fields. The same thing has 
been done in some parts of Ayrshire, and the 
same result has followed.” ‘The same unsparing 
extirpation of the barberry from hedges, though 
far from being in every case followed by any ob- 
-servable good effects, has been general or almost 
universal throughout England. 
Yet, even in the face of these seemingly strong 
facts, we are not at all disposed to concur in the 
accusation against the barberry. Mere theory, 
indeed, even though vindicated by the scientific 
observations of such distinguished phytologists 
as Duhamel, Broussonet, and others, would not 
induce us to resist a general and well-concocted 
testimony by farmers. But practical agricul- 
turists themselves are far from being unanimous 
in denouncing the barberry, and many of them 
concur with experimental phytologists of the 
highest credit in declaring it perfectly innocuous. 
L. A Staudinger, an experienced and enlightened 
cultivator at Flotbeck, near Hamburg, made ob- 
servations on mildew and ergot between the years 
1799 and 1830, and, in a published report of them, 
has completely exonerated the barberry. Horne- 
mann planted wheat and surrounded it with bar- 
berry bushes in the botanic garden of Copenhagen; 
yet, though he repeated the experiment several 
times, he did not obtain any mildew. Jussieu 
conducted a similar experiment with the same 
result, in the garden of Trianon. Mr. Knight 
also conducted a similar experiment, enjoyed an 
opportunity of seeing the wheat mildewed during 
the course of his experiment, and ascertained, by 
careful examination, and by a series of compara- 
tive trials, that the barberry was not to be 
blamed for the mildew. The Rev. Mr. Henslow. 
professor of botany in Cambridge, likewise had 
opportunity of instituting examination of mildew 
in the vicinity of the barberry, and ascertained 
that it might with as much plausibility be as- 
cribed to the shade of trees or the wetness of the 
soil as to the influence of this plant. “To those,” 
says Professor Henslow, ‘“ who feel as interested 
as myself in having this question settled beyond 
dispute, and who may possess the opportunity for 
doing so, I would suggest the following experi- 
ment. Let barberry bushes be planted in the 
middle of some fields, and protected by fences; 
let it be observed whether the corn grown in 
those fields is mildewed, and the circumstances 
under which this happens accurately noted ; let 
all failures be equally recorded. If the results of 
these experiments should tell to the prejudice of 
the barberry, I would willingly travel many miles 
to be convinced, by personal inspection, that 
this pretty and botanically interesting shrub had 
really caused the evil imputed to it.” The bar- 
berry is subject to attack from a minute para- 
sitic fungus called Ae¢dium berberidis, and wheat 
is subject to attack from a quite different minute 
parasitic fungus called Puccinia graminis ; and 
the general accusation against the barberry seems 
to have mainly, if not even wholly, arisen from 
re 
