Ergot

At the late meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, Mr. Pringle, Esq., of Charlotte, read a paper upon "Ergot."

Ergot is a fungus that attaches itself to vegetable and animal life. It produces serious disease in many sections. It often causes serious illness of various kinds in birds and animals, that are the cause of astonishment and of great wonder to the farmer or breeder. In grain and grasses it is often carried to countries where it has produced great loss to stock.

In medical practice it is wonderful in its effects, producing contraction of the muscles of the uterus, and is used to strengthen weak and difficult and prolonged parturition.

There are ergots of different kinds. [...] Some varieties attack not only the grains but the different parts of the plant while under the ground, dwarfing its growth and forming small bunches that burst and give off a fine powder that emits a pungent, offensive odor, similar to decayed flesh. During the season, after the blossoms of the wheat have been fertilized and the parts of the head are open, this dust is blown and wafted to the heads, and this parasite is thus engrafted and destroys the true kernel. The process by which the fertilization of the fungus takes the place of the true fertilization in the heads of grain was described and illustrated by drawings, in a manner that made them understood by his audience, but which cannot be made plain in an abstract without the drawings. The manner of growth, also the manner in which it is preserved in the ground through the winter, was also explained and illustrated by drawings that cannot be reproduced here, and without them it would be impossible to explain them. The effect upon grain is to absorb their nutriment, take the place of the true being, and enlarge them much beyond their true, natural size. A peculiar season of warmth and moisture is favorable to its growth. The grasses are badly affected by it, and the abortion of cows is probably attributable to it. Grasses affected by it were named.

The paper exhibited a very accurate acquaintance with the subject and an ability to explain it in a manner that was readily understood by the practical audience.

In the discussion following Mr. Pringle's paper, Mr. W. K. Sanford, of Orwell, stated that a number of years ago there was a disease among the cattle in this section, that caused them to lose their hoofs. At the time it was attributed to ergot in the grass adjoining.

Mr. J. S. Mower had fields that produced ergot extensively every time they were sown with grain. They were moist fields and what he called cold land. When he sowed rye, he always got a large crop of ergot and a small crop of rye.

In answer to a question, Mr. Pringle stated that the ergot that infested grass and grain is the same substantially; they would change, and propagate themselves from grass to grain, and vice versa. There was less of it in early cut hay, therefore it is desirable that our hay should be cut early. The smut of corn was different from that in the other kinds of grain. The smut in wheat often caused very serious illness in some foreign countries, by being imperfectly separated from the wheat before it was ground into flour.