Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/118

108 vineyards of the country, this is the method employed to save the crop from black rot, mildew, etc.

In the cereal-growing regions, oats and wheat are frequently damaged by the ravages of smut, a disease nearly all farmers are familiar with, which destroys the seed or the entire head. This smut is a mass of spores or seeds of a parasitic plant ripened in the seed grain. The spores are scattered over the field, and mingle among the grain when thrashed out. The grain is planted in the fall or spring, and the spores of the parasite germinate and grow along with the young plant, feeding on its juices. When the head of the plant begins to mature its seed it is blasted by the smut.

A simple remedy has been devised to combat the smut of oats and what is known as "bunt" or stinking smut of wheat. Investigations begun by Prof. Jensen, a Danish scientist, and also conducted at the Kansas and Purdue University Experiment Stations, conclusively show that by soaking the seeds of these cereals in water at a temperature of 135° to 140° Fahr. for five minutes all the spores were killed, and the crop from the treated seed would grow free of the malady. This simple method, costing nothing for materials, bids fair to be extensively used in future. It is estimated, as a result of investigation, that ten per cent of the oat crop is destroyed by smut. In 1889 the oat crop of Indiana amounted to 28,710,935 bushels. The value of the estimated ten per cent of loss is $797,520 for 3,190,104 bushels of oats at 25 cents a bushel. Certainly, if this sum can be saved it should be.

Few people realize the enormous loss to agriculture through the ravages of insects. In his annual address before the Association of Economic Entomologists at Washington in August, 1891, Mr. James Fletcher, the president, gave important facts concerning the extent of the losses from insect ravages. In 1864, Dr. Shimer estimated the loss to the corn and grain crops of Illinois to be $73,000,000. In 1874, Dr. Riley estimated a loss to Missouri by insects of 819,000,000. In 1887, Prof. Osborne, of the Iowa Agricultural College, estimated the loss to Iowa by insects at $25,000,000. Mr. L. O. Howard, in 1887, estimates $00,000,000 losses from chinch bug in nine States; and Prof. Comstock estimates that the cotton Aletia in 1879 caused a loss of $30,000,000 in the cotton States. Finally, Mr. Fletcher estimates $380,000,000 as the sum total per year for losses from insect ravages.

There are numerous illustrations available to demonstrate how great are the services of scientific research, from an entomological point of view, to agriculture, but I will refer to only three, as these are of striking interest and serve to illustrate the work.

The citrus industry of California is a great one, involving