Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-04-06
fungus has the peculiarly of depending

upon two distinct plants for its growth
and perfection, the wheat and the
barberry bush. Winter spores which
are dark brown in color, enlarge in
spring and divide into four or five sep
arate spores then float away in the air
Some fall upon the leaves of the bar
berry, and there fasten themselves and
send out hlaments into the tissue of
the leaf, and in a few days a yellow
spot Is formed in the barberry leaf, and
later are seen little cups containing
spores, which in their turn float away
and find a home on the leaves and
stems of the ripening wheat. A single
crop may contain as many as a half
million OF these little spores, each
capable of taking possession of a
wheat plant and spreading through its
tissue to the destruction of the grain.
AS a check to the spread of wheat
rust, all barberTy bushes should be ex-
Terminated; and if The wheat stubble
be burned in the autumn, a second
source of danger will be removed.
Corn smut is better known in New
England than wheat rust, as it is found
to greater or less extent in almost
every Geld and garden. 1t is supposed
that the spores of this parasite are car
ried to the tissues of the growing corn
plant through the roots from the seed
planted, or from infected soil, OF in
manure applied, also, by the smut
spores falling upon the leaves of the
corn plant while growing. 1t some
times does great injury to the corn
crop, and is believed by many to injure
cattle which are fed upon corn husks
that are badly smutted. Picking off
all the smutty ears while growing, and
destroying them by burning, will be a
sure method of Kidding a farm of this
parasite.
Oct smut attacks the grain of oats,
turning the heads TO mass of black
dust, which contains the spores of this
fungus. Soaking the seed in a solution
of sulphate of copper, is a common
preventive Of smut in this grain.
The onion is sometimes attacked by
a species of fungus which destroys al
most the entire crop, and so fills the
soil with spores which retain their
vitality for several years, that the
only remedy is to plant upon new land
where onions have not been grown for
at least seven years.
The black knot on our plum and
cherry tees, and recently upon ounce
bushes, is not, as many have supposed,
the work of the curculio, but of fun
gus that lives within the cells of the
living parts.
Prof. Farlow, while studying the
black knot, did indeed find insects in
the excrescences. but they were of sew
eral species, and doubtless made the
knots their homes; but i'll every case
he found the threads of certain spe-
cies of fungi, and one which is found
nowhere else except in the black knot.
The enlarged spots produce two differ.
ent kinds of spores, as does the wheat
plant fungus, one kind terminating in
the spring during the growth of the
warts, the other living through the
winter. As tho black knot will spread
if left to itself, the knife should be
freely used, and every diseased part
burned.
An apple tree fungus is beginning
to cause much damage in many locali-
ties by causing the leaves to fall aud
the fruit to present an unattractive
appearance. The apple tree fungus is
of the same group as the fungi which
attack wheat, barley and oat straw,
and which we call rust, but it is not
connected in this way with the barber
ry bush, but according TO observation,
with red cedar of our woods and pas
lures. AS proof of this, it has been
noticed that where an apple tree and a
red cedar tree grow so that the branch
es intertwine, the cedar apples, with
their profusion of orange colored dis
charges, and the rust spots on the
apple leaves and fruit, are much more
marked than on trees standing alone.
The remedies will suggest themselves
gather and burn the apple leaves when
the fall in the autumn, and DESTROY
the red cedar trees.
The peach curl is caused by fungi,
and the only remedy known is
the free use of the knife
when the disease first makes its ap-
pearance, but cutting alone is not
enough; cutting must be followed by
Immediate burning.
Mildew on the grape is related
to the potato rot fungus, and
has the same frost-like appear.
ance on the under side of the
leaves when they are first attacked.
Mildew appears from the first of June
to September, aud sulphur applied to
the under side of the leaves by a bel
lowe, Is the common remedy. Strong.
thick leaved varieties are most free
from the disease.
Market gardeners along the Atlantic
shore have been troubled for some
years past with lettuce fungus, which
frequently destroys the whole crop of
a large plantation. Sulphur will kill
it, but the sulphur must be washed off
before the lettuce is used, or it will
impart an unpleasant taste. Lime has
also been found to check or destroy the
lettuce fungi. Where the ground be-