Page:Husbandman and Housewife 1820.djvu/158



WHEAT is liable to a great number of diseases, of which smut has hitherto proved one of the most injurious.

Smut, however, may be prevented by any application, which completely frees the seed of smutty powder (the source of the infection) or that destroys it by acrid, corrosive or poisonous substances.

In steeping or washing seed wheat as a remedy for smut, Sir John Sinclair observes "that as a safeguard it is an excellent practice, when the wheat seed is first put into any liquid, to run it very gently through a riddle, when not only the smut balls, but the imperfect grains, and the seeds of weeds will float and may be skimmed off at pleasure, which is not the case when the seed is put hastily into the water." "Pure cold water and lime," observes the same author, "may be effectual, provided the seed be washed in several waters, repeatedly changed, until it be perfectly clean, and then dried by quick lime, slacked either with sea, or with boiling water." He recommends salt water as being more effectual than even boiling water and lime. The water should be so impregnated with salt that an egg will float in it, or if sea water with such a quantity of salt dissolved in it, as to be equally strong, by which its specific gravity will be so increased that all unsound grains will swim in the pickle. About a bushel of wheat at a time is put into a sufficient quantity of this pickle, in which when stirred all the light or diseased grains will rise to the top, and may be skimmed off. The seed wheat is then separated from the pickle, spread upon the floor, and a sufficient quantity of new slacked lime to dry the whole sifted upon it.