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"Pag Ten |By E. M. FREEMAN, Minnesota Ex periment Station.) Every farmer ia familiar with corn -amut. The largest masses are some jtimes over six inches in diameter, and -pre usually found in the ear. Smut Js also found in the tassel, on the leaves and stem, and even on those foots which hold the corn plant to the .aoil. The smut mass is blackish, and Is at first covered with a whitish film, which soon breaks and lets loose the spore-powder, which is blown about fey the wind. How, by these spores, the disease lives through the winter, .find gets into the corn plant, has been described above. In general, there {ire two waya by which the spores feet back on the land, ready to Infect khe next year's crop. First, they may be scattered by the wind, or the amut 5 iferome Grass Grown in North Da kota for Years. VALUABLE FACTS REGARDING CORN SMUT tjMaln Trouble With Those Not Favor lug Crop la In Time of Cutting— Should Be Cut When Heada A. 8ection, Greatly Enlarged, Through a Young Smut-Boil on a Corn Leaf, Showing the Fungous Thread*. Group of Fungoua Thread* From an Older Imul-MI. |n*—ns may be left on the field. 8ee bnd, the amut duat may get Into the .dodder and may pass through the ali mentary canals of the cattle, without king injured, and may thus get Into 'the manure pile. Or, again, the smut imaases may be thrown into the refuse -4r manure mile. In either caae they .'may be carried back to the soil when {the latter la manured. Now, it is an (important fact that the smut spores [not only max live through the winter tin the manure pile, but that they may factually Increase in number by .growth when the pile remains of Iproper temperature. Fresh manure i:ontainlng smut is therefore very like riy to Increase smut in a corn field. VALUABLE AS LEGUME Are In Early Purple. R. WALDRON. Superintendent, Dickinson Sub-Station.) Valuable as are the legumea, both .lh their relation to the soil and to the I**'—'* which feed upon them, it ia jwell to supplant their use by the /growth and uae of some of the small While many kinds of grasses can fee grown in North Dakota, and many •of them with a lesser or greater de of success, experience and ex erimental work have gone far enough so that we are definitely able to recommend these two sorts above mil others. Brome grass has been grown ex tensively in the state for many years. Unfortunately it has not found the general favor among the farmers of the state as was once ..hoped for it. Two common complaints are lodged .against brome grass. These are: First, it does not produce a good qual ity of hay, i. e., it is not palatable, and, second, it does not yield crops large onough to be paying. In regard to the first of these con tenticyis, it may be said that brome grass hay ia actually as good as tim *othy hay, and as far as richness goes, perhaps even better. Why then, is -there this disagreement? No doubt the main trouble with those that ob ject to the quality of brome grass hay lies in the time of cutting. Na tive prairie hay can be cut along in July without much injury to Its qual ity. Not so with brome grass. It should be cut when the heads are in the early purple, or Just before the time of blossoming. If allowed to go fceyond thl6 stage, the hay is of poor The smut may live for several years] in a manure pile, but will gradually' die out. For thiB reason, old manurel is much better for fertilizer on aj corn field than fresh manure. Since the smut masses that are left' in a corn field may assist in spreading the tusease, they should be cut out ojj the corn field during the growing seat son. They should, moreover, be cut' out before they have fully opened up and spread their spores, and should be collected and burned. They should not be thrown on the manure heap or refuse pile, thence to be carried back| to the land. Rotation of crops is valuable inj preventing corn aaaut. The reason for this is plain. Ibe corn smut in the soil will not Urn many years, and that, which ia in the soil will not danagej any other ferm crop. After several yeare, corn again be planted! with less dan^lr, since the smut in the soil will have at least parti" die out. Seed treatment has not been found to be of any use. The smut does, not ga into the seedling plant, as in the stinking smut of wheat, and hence seed treatment does not seem neces sary. The sugar corns seem to hav* more smut thai, the field corns) ^nngh no varieties, even of the latt ter, are known that are tree. Corn smut is found in almost every part of Minnesota where corn is grown. Some years seem to be worse than others, due probably to favorable, weather conditions. Although the loss is usually not as great as in some states further south and east, it is nevertheless considerable. Most farm ers consider the loss too small to de mand any attention, yet the aggregate to the atate is undoubtedly large. It should be noticed that the loss is not measured by the deformed ears alone, but also by the loss of vigor and yield in plants where other parts are affected by smut. Special care should therefore be exercised with the sugar coma. quality, but the grasa is not ts blame. In regard to the aecond point, th« poor yield of the grass, thia aeema to be true to a certain extent Th« yield may be good for the second and third year after aeedlng. but froir then on it drops rapidly and faila tc be profitable. Thia decreased yield, la the drier portions of the atate, may be ascribed in part to an absoluU lack of molature and in part also to other causes, not well understood. It does not seem aa if brome grasa makea full use of the moisture it r» ceives on soils of medium or of pool fertility. When the brome grass yields hav« become poor, the crop may be reno vated by severe disking, or perhapi more preferably by plowing. Aftei sod-bound brome grass is plowed, on may expect it to come on with re newed vigor, and especially is thia true if barn-yard manure can be ap plied to the field. In plowing, rathei narrow, shallow furrows should 1m turned, and they should overlap aome what. The plowing should be don when the soil is moist and the plowed ground be worked down as level ai possible. Before mentioning the good quail ties of brome grass, permit me tc atate two more of its faults. It doei not seed well from an ordinary drill Seeding must be done by hand oi broadcast by a special wheelbarrow seeder. It does not kill out readilj when once established and this be comes more emphatically true upon those soils best adapted to Its growth. Brome grass seed is not expensive the stand is quite easily secured il fttvi pasture grass probabl) unequaled by any other plant thai can be grown in North Dakota, sur passing in many points even the na tive grasses and finally it furnishei a hay of good quality, equal to tim othy in palatibility and surpassini timothy somewhat in richness. Decreaae Grasshopper*. Grasshoppers may be materially de creased by winter or early sprint disking. [WHEAT BULLETIN NOW OFF PRESS GIVES VALUABLE INFORMATION REGARDING WHEAT GROW ING AND DISEASES North Dakota Experiment Station Bulletin 107. Wheat: Soil Troubles and Seed Deterioration, Causes of Soil Sick ness in Wheat Lands, Possible Meth ods of Control, Cropping Methods with wheat, by H. .Bolley, is now off the press and may be had on ap plication. The following statements taken from pages 4, 5, 6. and 7 indicate the subject matter of the bulletin and those who study these statements will be better able to understand the investigations and studies upon which the bulletin is based. Statements 1. Constant or rather constant culture of wheat on the same lands bring about wheat-sickness, wheat sick soil. 2. Wheat does not thrive well in the presence of its own dead bodies, no matter how fertile the soil. 3. Constant wheat cropping does not especially exhaust or use up the fertility, plant foods, more rapidly than crops in series. 4. Best evidence indicates that constant wheat cropping does not in troduce into the soil any permanent excrement or poisons detrimental to wheat. 5. Constant wheat cropping tends to introduce with the seed, stubbie, roots, etc., a number of wheat disease producing fungi These fungi de stroy, blight and rot off the roots of the wheat plants, and live internally in the straw and the seeds. 6. These fungus parasites of wheat accumulate in fertile soils and bring about a condition of wheat sickness, "whoa""-tired soil." which has led many to assumo WIL.L18T0N GRAPHIC that such soils are in part or wholly exhausted for wheat. 7. Wheat-sick soil and wheat-sick seed are the chief causes of the trou ble which millers complain cf as de teriorated grain. 8. The fungi attack the roots of the wheat, the leaves, stems and young developing grains and produce many peculiar evidences of damage to the crop. They are the chief cause of the failure of wheat to properly stool on fertile soils. They make the plants live almost upon the surface of the soil even tho the land is deeply and well worked. They cause the follow ing peculiar features: wilting and blighting of embryos and plantlets in first leaf, "tip burn" and "sun scald" of voung plants at stooling time, blighting of side stool at shot-leaf period, black-foot or cresote colored stems below ground line death of when! in alkaline areas otherwise not sufficiently alkaline to injure the crop, incomplete filling of upper head parts, shrivelled grains, "black-pointed" grains, purplish of pink grains, white bellied grains, pie-bald grains, and play a large part in the troubles spoken of as "bleached and blistered" grain. 9. There are a number of these wheat fungi and together or sever ally they largely account for many anomalies of cropping. For example some times fresh barnyard manures are particularly injurious to wheat even on rather poor lands. Some times the best methods of tillage fail to give plump wheat on good soils and under good weather conditions, series of crop rotation fails to pro series of crop ratation fails to pro duce wheat of proper grade under otherwise high culture and soil qual ity. Sometimes the most approved use of artificial fertilizers fail to give prooer results even when applied to rather poor wheat soils. Finally it i3 not at all uncommon for the best var iety. best selected, best treated seed to fail to properly reproduce itself, even under high class soil, tillage and climatic conditions. These failures of the past may be explained by the fact that the root and seed diseases of wheat were present—introduced some times by the seed, some times by the fresh, uncomposted strawy manures, sometimes by wind-blown or water-washed dirt, etc. 10. This disease theory rests on facts of nature. It helps to explain many good results which are some times noticed under intensive, proper, careful farming. For example: Pro per summer working or soil tillage tends to firm down the soil and these wheat fungi do not develop rapidly or deeply in a firm compact seed bed. Such proper soil tillage keeps the up per layers of the soil stirred until the sunlight and aeration tends to purify the soil from the germs of the wheat diseases. The purified soil not only becomes more nearly free from weed seeds, but also largely free from the root destroying fungi. The wheat roots can then penetrate more deep ly. Properly composted barnyaid manures ten to become free from such wheat root diseases. Properly se lected plump, bright colored, heavy weight seed grains contain less para sitic fungi under the bran layers than do the low grade shrivelled or water injured grains. The fanning mill, properly used, tends to discard grains which contain the wheat-sick fungi on the interior. Proper treatment of seed wheat not only kills smut spores, but kills the spores of the wheat root diseases which are commonly abun dant on the exterior of even the high est grade wheat. Wheat which has been threshed before it is allowed to get wet makes better sed what than that which gets wet in tl'e grain or sheaf because such dry threshed, dry saved seed does not give the wheat root fungi opportunity to grow under the bran layers of healthy seeds or grains. 11. Wheat deterioration in the fertile wheat growing areas of North west America involves soil and seed problems directly analogous to those in the case of the flax crop or potato crop. It is not primarily a problem of soil fertility lost, but of disease present. 12. Our "wheat-sick" soils are properly described by the word. They ity to grow nonpal wheat. They will do it again when most of our farm ers understand that proper wheat farming involves a proper sanitary handling of the soil and seed. 13. Fertilizers and crop rotation will give a better account of them selves when the farmers sow purified seed on purified soil. 14. The proper foundations for a crop rotation rests in the use of com paratively non-related crops in series, —those which do not bear each oth ers' diseases. 15. Fresh barnyard manures con taining wheat refuse, straw, etc., should not be used for immediate or direct application to the wheat crop. It should either be purified by com posting or be applied to some crop not closely related to wheat. 16. Artificial fertilizers, if applied should be used with the view of giv ing a proper balanced food relation for the even development of a sturdy resistant leafage and straw. 17. Proper methods of soil tillage and handling of manures and artificial fertilizers are not merely measures for supplying plant food, but also involve vital features of a sanitary nature. 18. In cereal cropping, air, water and soil fertility (plant foods) are primary matters of crop productiv ity. 19. The problem of grain deterior ation, as now observed by farmers, millers, chemists and agriculturists, the writer thinks, involves the qes tion: "What is the matter with the crop and its product?", rather than: "What is the matter with the soil?" 20. Deteriorated wheat, as seen in depressed yields and low quality, as now quite commonly produced in the great natural- wheat-producing reg ions of this country, is not. primar ily, a matter of lost fertility, or of modified chemical content of the soil, but is specifically a problem of infec tious disease which is suoerimnosed upon the problems of soil and crop management. Crop rotation, for ex ample, is not, primarily. a farm pro cess which is likely to conserve the fertility of the soil, but when proo erly arranged in a system so that the proper crops follow one another, it is definitely a sanitary measure tending to maximum production. 21. Wheat-root fungi and their snores arP drifted from field to field and persist in the soil in exactly the same sense as weed seeds are dis tributed. This accounts for much new land infection. 22. In so far as other cropping plants and their diseases a^e mention ed i" this bulletin, they are used onlv for illustration nurnoses because more commonly understood. General Luther Mark 2.10 3-4 Certificate No. 2453 Will Stand the Season of 1914 at Golden Rule Barn, East Broadway General Luther is sired by Gambetta Wilkes acknowleged as the leading pacing sire in the world, having 231 in the list including George Gano 2:02, Branham Baughman 2:04 1-4, Guinette 2:05 and many others equally as good. His dam is Mirtzy (dam of three) by F. Clay 2:18, sire of Con nor 2:03 1-4, Colridge 2:05 1-4, Choral 2:06 1-2 and many other fast ones. He is one af the Grandest sires between the lids of the American Trotting Reg ister and has perfect style, carriage, finish, substance and soundness. He is a sure foal getter and no horse sires more size, style, finish and better gaited or better mannerd colts than he does. TERMS: $10.00 at the time of service, balance of $25.00 to insure standing colt For particulars write Box S, Williston, N. D., or Phone 299 wall covering Why Use Beaver Board? Raiicma Rnmnrn "WHITE WAY" AT NOONAN Grand Forks, May .—In the past year, many North Dakota towns and cities have put in the new "White Way" electric street lighting system which up to three or four years ago were unknown even in the largest cities of the country. In this sys tem, instead of the old style arc light hung in the middle of the street at the corner, ornamental standards each supporting five tungstan electric lamps enclosed in white globes arc placed along the curbs on each side of the business streets of the city, they being used either eight or ten posts to the block. This new system is not only very ornamental, but has the advantage of distributing the light more thoroughly than the old plan. Light at night, does more than any thing else to liven up the community and to promote activity and trade in the evening. This system was first installed in North Dakota about four years ago at Grand Forks, and it has rapidly spread to the smaller towns throughout the state. The latest to install these lights is Noonan, one of the smallest towns of Divide county. No. 37361 RrrilKP replaces the dust ard dirt of lath and plaster with a sanitary and clean can DCUSCaC different designs t®ie DvCflUM? s|jOW decorated with hundreds of Williston lumber dealers can yOU 39 other advantages CAA If at the lumber yards and talk it over with your dealer. Speaking of the new lights tha Noo nan MINER says: "At last our hopes have been rea lized—our dreams have come true what a few months ago seemed an ab solute impossibility has come to pass, for on Tuesday evening of this week, the "juice" was turned into th.?^ "white way" for the first thro. and* our streets which in the past have aiv.ays been dark and dingy suddenly became emblazened with light, and a new epoch in the history of our city rtaa been reached. "The White Way" system of street lighting is the very latest and Is only to be found in the larger cities of the country, and it is safe bet that Noo nan holds the distinction of being the smallest city in the state to boast of a "White Way." There seems to be something in the North Dakota atmosphere that makes North Dakota communities live and progressive. In the May American Magazine Abe Martin, the famous Indiana funny man', writes an amusing piece about spring fever. Following is an ex tract A* Thursday, May 14r 1914. 4