LECTURE ON AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 159, 5 July 1879, Page 3

LECTURE ON AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.

A lecture was recently delivered in Tasmania by Mi-. 11. W. Emerson Maclvor, who was brought to the Australian colonies by the Hon. W. J. T. Clarke, M.L.C., Victoria, for the purpose of imparting a scientific knowledge of farming and agricultural chemistry to his tenants. The subject of the lecture was rust in wheat. The disease (said the lecturer) originated in imdramed land, and attacked the wheat about (often before) the time_ of flowering. The rist fungus, examined under the microscope, presented th? appearance of a mass of egg?, each of which possessed a rootlet projecting from the end. In the early stage of development, the eggs were, united in the form of a chain", but in a subsequent stage they were separated from each other. When lu the last stage of its metamorphosis. the fungus was spread over the length and breadth of the land by the winds, and settled in hedges and other vegetation, from which, in the following season, it found its way to the wheat crops in the neighbourhood. Rust and smut had in a great measure disappeared from Scotland and other countries where drainage had been generally introduced. Hence draining was a preventative. The process of steeping or " pickling" wheat seed arose through practical and seintiiic men having found that " rust" adhered to the grain, and that unless some ; means were adopted to destroy it the disease would spread to the ciop. One of the oldest steeps was putrid urine, it had proved efficacious. In America the usual system of steeping consisted in throwing the seed into a solution of common salt (of sufficient strength to float an Qgg), and after the light grains and seeds of weeds had been " skimmed" from the surface of the liquid, the seed was taken out and mixed with l-12th of its weight of slacked lime. He (the lecturer) had found from his researches tliat contrary to the general impression the salt did not kill the rust, but that it was the lime used for drying the seed that accomplished this end. The usual " steep" or u pickle" for wheat peed was bluestone (sulphate of copper). The quantity of this material used for a sack of wheat should he dissolved in sufficient-water to thoroughly moisten the seed. In a lecture, to be given in Victoria, the lecturer will recommend fot trial a new steep for wheat which ho believes will rephce all other now in use. In addition to these preventatives of rust the farmer should use no other than hard straw wheat, as these were more capable of resisting the disease than such as had soft straw. as all varieties of wheat were liable, during certain seasons, and especially in rich soils to a "flaggy" or too luxuriant growth, he would recommend early and thin sowing. If land was too thickly sown the plants would come up too close together, and, in struggling for the same food, would act injuriously upon each other, the more vigorous starving the weakly and at the same time injuring SE. if/is own 'strength. A weak animal is more liable to take disease than a strong one, and this same rule holds good with plants. Y/eaken the growth of wheat, and the straw will be the more liable to the attack of rust. If land is too* raids, for wheat a dressing of two or three cwt. of salt per acre will remove any chance of " flaggy" straw, and at the time insure a yield of excellent grain. In concluding his remarks, he said science could not give other advice than that which he had endeavored to give, and so the firmer, to avoid losses, would do well to follow it out to the best of his nbiiitv.