Year: 1875




by John Feast, florist, of Baltimore,
before the Academy of Science


This, from the earliest ages, has been
and proved to be q source of much
trouble and loss in crops, and not con-
fined in one section of the globe, but
all over the world /; it is word of OBJ
scure meaning, possibly derived from
the Greek word ezra. closely packed),
in allusion to the crowded manner in
which the little plants are placed.
Puccinea- graminas is plant too well
known to farmers under the name of
blight. 1t attacks the stem and leaves
of all kinds of grain, at the first having
the appearance of orange colored
streaks, which afterwards assume
deep chocolate brown color. The little
plants chiefly attack the parenchyma
Immediately below the stomata with
which the cutIcle abounds, each indi-
vidual is so small, that any stoma on a
straw will produce from twenty to forty
fungi, and every one of them will, no
doubt. produce at least one hundred
reproductive particles, so that the
progeny from a single stoma will be
enough to infect a whole pant. The
period of termination is supposed not
to exceed more than a week, ard as the
reproductive particles are exceedingly
light, they are waited aloft in the air,
which is thus loaded with clouds of
animated dust, ready upon the first
favorable occasion to carry blight and
disease into all the neighborhoOd, and
upon examination piece of infected
wheat stem, highly magnifed, will show
the disease as stated.


Agriculturists may examine not only
their crops, but the origin and advances
also of all those obstacles which nature
has opposed to the success of agricul- |
tural labor, as if to awaken the energy
of reason and to reward the farmer for |
the exertions of mis- intellectual faculties !
by the satisfaction of surmounting
them.


Botanists have long known that the |
blight in grain is occasioned by the |
growth of minu e parasitic fungus on |
the leaves, stems, and glums of the /
living plant. Felice Fontana published |
in the year 1867 an elaborate account |
of this Obstructive pest so injurious to /
grain, and since that time modern 1
Botanists have given figures both of
grain and grass affected by it, using
high magnifying powers in their re-
searches, which have been of mach |
benefit to the farmer and the world at
large.


In order, however, to render explana-
ton more easy to be understood, it is
necessary to premise that the striped
appearance of the surface of the straw,
which may be seen by the naked eye,
Is caused by alternate longitudinal
partitions of the bark, the one inper-
forate, and the other furnished with
one or two rows of pores or mouths,
shut In dry, open in wet weather, and
well calculated to imbibe fluid when
ever the straw is damp. Pores or
mouths similar to these are placed by
nature on the surface of the leaves,
stems and branches of all perfect plants,
q provision intended, no doubt, to
compensate in some measure the want
OF locomotion in vegetables. A plant
cannot, when thirsty, go to the brook
and drink, but it can open iDnumerabie
orifices for the reception of every de
gree of moisture, which either falls il
the shape of rain or dew, or is separated
from the mass of fluid always held IN
solution by the atmosphere it seldom
happens In the dryest season that the
night does not afford some refreshment
of this kind to restore the moisture
that has been exhausted by the heat OF
the preceding day. By these pores.
which exist also on the leaves and
glums, it is presumed that these seeds
of the fungus gain admission, and at
the bottom of the hollows to which
they lead they germinate and push their
minute roots. No doubt, they may be
traced into the cellular texture beyond
the bark, where they draw their nour-
ishment by intercepting the sap that
was intended by nature for the nutri-
ment of the grain the grain, of course,
becomes shrivelled in proportion as
the fungi are more or less numerous on
the plaut and as the kernel only is ex-
tracted from the grain, while the cortial
part remains undiminished. The pro-
portion of -four to bran in blighted \
grain is always reduced in the same
degree as the grain is made light. Some
will not yield sixteen lbs. Of -four to
two bushels of grain, and it is not i'm
possible where the grain has been so
robbed of it's flour by the
fungus, that if the farmer choose to
incur the expense of threshing and
grinding it, bran would be the pro-
duce with scarcely an atom of flour for
each grain.