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has been written by several ingenious men upon such curiousand interesting topics; in the present instance, therefore, at-tention shall only be given to what may lead to practicalconclusions.
Smut is a singular degeneracy of the grains in the ear, bywhich the substance of the grain becomes entirely changedinto a black powder, similar to that which is naturally conitained in lycoperdon globosum, puff-ball, or dusty mushroom.When infected by this disease, the wheat is said to be blacked,smutty, or balled; and when to a great degree, the injury tothe crop is very important, both by diminution of produce,and by the remaining wheat being tainted or dirtied by theblack powder, which materially hurts the produce in flourunless previously washed. When smutted, many farmerswash their own wheat, by floating it in large tubs partly filledwith water, skimming off the light grains and smut-balls;after which the heavy, sound, and washed grain is spread outon cloths to dry in the sun and air; or if the quantity beconsiderable, it is dried on a kiln. Where a farmer has aconsiderable quantity of smutted wheat, it were perhaps betiter to dress his grain as well as possible, and to leave thewashing and drying to the corn-merchants or millers, whohave kilns and other conveniences for that purpose.
Notwithstanding the violent and swift action of threshing?mills, it is a certain fact, that they do not bruise the smut-balls nearly so much as is done by the flail or swiple; so thatwheat threshed by the mill, though containing a considerableproportion of smut-balls, is not blackened or dirtied in anydegree equal to that which is threshed by the flail. Hence,by industrious dressing, all the balls may be cleaned out, andthe wheat sent to market in good condition. Besides thecircumstance of the flail breaking a great many more of thesmut-balls than is done by the threshing-machine, flail-threshed wheat lies long on the damp threshing-floor, mixedamong the broken smut-balls; during which the black pow-