The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1899-08-10
BLACK RUST.
Nothing Alarming for the Future
I'm it's Development
Now.

The black rust, which was, for the
first tine last year, observable in
sufficient quantity to do measurable
damage has reappeared this season
over wider area, but in less in
tensity, Last year several fields were
abandoled, and in one or two
instances fields were cut and shocked
but never threshed.
Fears were entertained that a new,
increasing and disastrous malady of
most alarming character had come
to staN But it seems that such fears
are groandless. The fields so badly
affected last year in this vicinity are
not ESPECIALLY bad this.
Prof Lugger of the State Uni
versity has been through southern
Minnesota Investigating the plague,
! and in An interview with Pioneer
| press reporter. he says:
1.-THE back rust is simply local" More
over it's territory is narrowly circumscribed.
A few firms, a very few, have lost their
crops. Bat outside of possibly dozen farms
in the whple state, the damage is trivial and
| is scarcely worth consideration.
BLACK rust, is simply the winter spores
| of the ordinary rust. The difference is simply
| in the period at which the spores develop
and in the color
THE black or winter spores have two coats
| of coloring material, while the red has only
| one Thai is all the difference. The two
| coats givea darker effect.
These winter spores appear in the very
| early spring at the first intimation of warmth
| They survive the winter weather, and nothing
| but lack of vegetation in the early spring fol
them to feed upon prevents their alarming
multiplication. 1t is only in cases where the
early spring spores can find blades of vege
tation to support them that they live to dc
damage. In Minnesota. therefore, black rus
gets no foothold. Further south the pest is
| source of great danger.
| IF these winter spores did not die for lacl
of vegetation when they appear in the earl.
spring. they would destroy the crops of Mime
sofa in two years. just consider this fact
There are 100000 spores in single stalk 0
wheat two feet long. These spores surviv
the winter. Our climate does not effect them
and further, they are not injured when fe'
and passed through animals. Nothing kill
them, except the spring sprouting and star
Il walton for lack of vegetation to live upon a
thai t5nS When they sprout in this state i
the cary spring they die. and that is the en-
of them.
"If Minnesota wheat was winter grain, ia
stead Of being spring planted. it would prof
ably be very serious. The fresh blades {
winter wheat, ready to support the spare
when they sprouted in the early sprin,
) would mean a vast menace to the state
staple crop Spring sowing avoids it and lie,
the young spores die,
i "Ihe patches of black rust which are r,
ported from a number of equities have III
douttedly come in from the South They al
imported contagious. What 1 went out int
Lac qui Parle and Meeker for was to inve.
; tigate as to the truthfulness of the repol
thatblack rust had struck the same farm i
two successive seasons. This led to tn
supposition that it had survived from las
years crop, which would be contrary to a.
our knowledge of the pest and it's habits.
went out to see if this successive vistatio
was general in any locality of the state.
find that it is not. There are one or tw
farms in the whole state where this has oc
cured, the exceptions which prove the rule
The lease | found in Lac qui Parle county
one of the cases where lightning has strucl
twiOe in the same spot. That is. one poo
farmer has been unfortunate enough to hav
a visitation of black rust spores from tn
South two seasons in succession.
| where black rust visits it does thorough
and disastrous job. ] visited a forty-acr,
field near Madison, where the wheat blades
| were all consumed. The heads stood VI
| straight in the air with not a thing in them
The field was complete wreck. But the rus
was restricted to that farm, and outside o.
this particular spot scarcely anything of i,
was noticeable. This, again, shows that the
pest is imported, and not native.
| 81 vent out to Litchfeld and beyond AND
| found the same result. The extent of the
black rust is localized within very narrow
| limits. 1t is not at all alarming in its occur
renee and is no greater this year than usual
1t always appears, and in this same acciden-
| tai and widely scattered manner. 1 would
| have given it no attention this year had II
not been for the report that it had come to a
number Of farms two years in succession.
thought that report worth examination. But
the investigation brings out nothing new OF
alarming"