SMUT AND BUNT.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2638, 20 September 1882, Page 3

SMUT AND BUNT.

Without going into the details of the life history of smut, in so far as the meritorious labors of eminent botanists have made us familiar therewith, we may nevertheless briefly Bam up what is known. The sporea are introduced with the coed ; of this there appears to be no reasonable doubt. (They are so excessively minute that dozens of them might exist merely in the irregularities of surfaoe of a grain of wheat, without detection. The seed may be, and usually is, perfectly sound, for these spores only adhere to it mechanically, having, in all probability, dropped on to the ripening grain of a sound ear from an adjacent smutted ear which has undergone utter destruction. When the grain germinates the spore germinates likewise ; the young seedling sends its rootlets into the soil, and its stem into the air in search of food, while the spore, in pursuance of the same laudable object, sends its thread-like tubes, known ae the mycelium (from my tee, a mould), into the young plant, and so they grow on together, the wheat nourishing and harboring the fungal pest which lives on its nutrient juices, and which, in the fulness of time, will utterly destroy its host. As the wheat plant grows higher and higher, so do the mycelial tubes of the fungns o rry their virulent contents more and more intimately into the tissues of the doomed cereal, and when the vertical growth of the latter is terminated by the development of the ear, it is that the true character of the insidious pest betrays itself. It has so sapped the vital energies of its viotim that the feebleness which is, as it were, the harbinger of death, seems to wain the fungus that it, likewise, must prepare for a sp.edy dissolution. When the devoted plant has given to its rapacious foe all that there was to give, then "Othello's occupation's gone." Now it is that the fungus does something particularly characteristic of a fungus ; its own opportunities for doing mischief are over, but it prepares a orop of spores, millions in number, every one of whioh is capable of repeating what its parent has done before. These spores are prepared in the ear, and their formation involves the consumption of all nutriment in the ear, till, by and by nothing but a thin layer of epidermis is left. This, too, is consumed, longitudinal fissures appear in it, and in a few hours' time the spores in all their blackness are exposed to view along the entire ear. Gradually the wind soatters them, and a bare white axis on the top of the straw is the only indication left of what might have been. From the very nature of the case, smut is an inourable disease. When once established it is as impossibo to prevent the progress of smut as to stop the wind from blowing. Bat it is preventible, and we are inclined to think that it is due entirely to the precautious whioh have, for years past, been observed by oareful farmers in their treatment of seed before sowing that the disease is not far more prevalent. If smut spares exist, and they do exist, on seed corn, they can never be removed by mechanical agencies. The only cure is that of extermination, of utter destruction, and chemical agenotes alone can effeot this. The lesson pointed out is clearly that the dressing should be thoroughly and carefully performed, eo that every individual {.rain may get well moistened. It is an operation not to be left in the hands of the men, and it is of quite sufficient moment to merit the personal supervision of the farmer himself. In dressing corn for the destruction of smut epores we, at the same time, destroy the sporeß of bunt. This latter has a history very similar to that of smut; but it is on the whole less oommon, and appears later in the history of the crop. It does not rupture the epidermis, but fills up the interior of the grain, the substance of which it replaces by a blackish, greasy mass of spores with an odour strongly suggestive of putrid fish. It is a more serious enemy than smut, for smut makes a clean job of its work, and leaves no injurious traces behind, whereas bunt deteriorates a sample very considerably, inasmuch as many partially bunted grains may be present, and the odour causes the miller to refuse to have anything to do with it. Such bunted corn sooner or later finds its way into the feeding trough. Smut, Ustilago carbo, attacks wheat and oats indifferently, and barley l3ss frequently ; while bunt, Tilletia caries, seems confined to wheat. What influence, if any, the weather has on tho rarity or abundance of these parasites is not known, though it is oertain that there is great variation in different years in the extent of their ravages. This season will probably live in the memory as notable for tho prevalence of araut. Rust, too, has beon very ooramon, but this, though a fung*l disease, is very different in its mode of pro pagation from bunt and ernut. It has nothing to do with the seed grain, end h probably far more under the influence of tho weather than the other two are. There is a very common saying, fami:ij.r, no doubt, to most of our readers, that smut is a sign of a e;ood crop. How this eayi.ig originated we cannot pretend to say, but wo hope we shall not wound any prejudices by stating that we do not believe it. So far a* wo have noticed good and bad crops suffar alike, arid we fear the saying is nothing but n condolatory one quite unwarranted by fact. In so far as we have spoken of smut and bui .t.. perhaps Ootober would have been a meve seasonable period for our remarks, since ttit is the time for dressing seed corn ; but as \fc are inolined to think that the present sHa.A of smut is not altogether undue to insufficient or oareless washing of the seel last sowing time, a few words now may perhaps itduof others, as well as ourselves, to be not careful ond more thorough with our woik next fall.