ALLEGED CURE OF RUST IN WHEAT.

Otago Witness, Issue 905, 3 April 1869, Page 16

ALLEGED CURE OF RUST IN WHEAT.

(Cape Argus.)

A disease that attacks grain sown in poor and rich ground alike, and from which no kind of seed yet tried 13 really free, although hope 3 to the contrary have been entertained of one or two importations, is not likely to be traced to its causa. But he has something to say on the cure of the disease. He tells a curious tale of a farmer on the frontier, whose crops 3iave long enjoyed immunity from rust. While his neighbours have suffered severely, his fields have always been smiling with a rich and fruitful harvest. He hap. so we are told, plouahed furrows of his seed in neigh ours' fields with a similar resuit, and his wheat flourished within a foot of rows of grain attacked with the disease. But, strange to say, this fortunate agriculturist would not tell his secret. It was apparently not to be got either for love or money. His public spirit and private feeling were appealed to in vain. At last it oozed out that he had read of the remedy in a book published three hundred years ac;o. Now, agricultural publications were at that date, to say the least, very scarce, and diligent search was made in an old book published ia the seventeenth century, where a receipt is found, which is believed to be the very one which the fortunate fanner has so successfully employed. The remedy is very simple. It consists in steeping the seed wheat in sea- water, We believe that several farmera are trying the experiment with this year's sowing and. our object in writing now is to induce others to try it. The late " bearded wheat," which makes the beat flour, is being sown, and it is surely worth while to try what the new remedy will do. We should not advise the steeping of any large quantity of the seed until the experiment has been fully made. A patch here and there would be all tho better for purposps of comparison. If the sea-water is really found of service in curing the disease, we should imagine that a saturated solution of salt would answer the same purpose, though this is by no means certain. Sea water has a life of its own, and an influence^ on cer- , tain descriptions o veuetatien, which no chemical compounds can produce, as any one who haa kept a marine aquarium may know. At all events, our country friends could try the salt and water, and then the resulfca could be compared. We urge upon our friends the importance of trying so simple a remedy, it tfeey h^ye not flowed

their wheat sowing. If nothing conies of it, no harm will be done. Certain it is that no news could be more welcome to the colony than the discovery of a remedy for rust. It is of as much importance as the discovery of some means of preventing drought or husbanding the winter rains.