On the Smut in Wheat
Hardy County, Va. Sept. 25, 1820.
Mr. Skinner.—I made an observation on the smut in wheat, I have not seen mentioned by any of your correspondents, in the beginning of August, on a visit to a young friend who had the smut in his wheat. I had never seen it only in the cleaned grain, and wished to examine it in the head. I walked with him to his stacks, we found the heads that were hanging outside the stacks eat, the chaf cut as if an insect had cut its way into the grain, or out. – On further examination, I found the passage to be into the grain through the bran, and the black dust entirely consumed, leaving the bran of the grain nearly whole, only the small round hole for the passage into the smut. We soon found heads with several small brown or brindled shelled bugs on them, such as described by one of your correspondents some weeks past. I observed they were what consumed the smut. My next object was to see whether they cut their passage in or out of the grain; by breaking a few grains that appeared whole we found the bug inside the bran in several that had no appearance of perforation, and the black smut entirely consumed. I pulled several handfuls out of the stack, but could find no appearance of the bug being hatched in the grain in the body of the stack. It may be that the egg is prevented from producing its bug by the heat and pressure of the grain, or for want of air or sun. If gentlemen that have grain stacks near them that have the smut will examine them, they will be able to judge, by observing if the heads outside the stack are eat, as I have said, and also can see whether the insect has hatched in the body of the stacks. I have no grain near me with the smut, or I would have examined farther.
At that time I was convinced that the bug hatched inside the grain, and was supported by the black dust, until it came out after the smut was consumed: as I have not seen it mentioned by farmers of more observation and better opportunities of seeing smutty wheat near them. I begin to doubt that I was too soon convinced of what perhaps may not be a fact—but the point will not be difficult to determine.
Sir, your’s with respect.
ABEL SEYMOUR