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Show sacks or clothing coming in contact con-tact with it. Formaldehyde is a gas generated by burning wood alcohol. It is readily soluble in water, which will hold 40 per cent of it in solution. It-can be bought from most drug stores at about 50 cents per pound. The experience of the Utah experiment experi-ment station has been that seed treated with formalin as suggested suggest-ed w'll produce grain entirely free from smut. The treatment has come into quite general use and when employed has invariably invari-ably been effective. SMUT IN WHEAT. S Prof. L. A. Merrill of the Utah Agricultural colleges gives the following timely information on this subject: Smut is a small plant which feeds upon some other plant as a host; and grows upon or inside of it. The plant is produced from a small body corresponding to the seed of a higher plant. In the soil, when the conditions are favorable fav-orable to the germination of wheat seed, this bo'dy, called smut spore, also germinates, and sends into the wkeat or oat plant, when but a few days old, a small tube, which breaks up into numerous branches and grows up within the tissues of the host plant (wheat, oats or barley). These smut spores do not live over tlie winter in the ground, but are killed through frost or inclement weather. Tne smut affecting the crop lives during dur-ing the winter as spores on the -seed grain, and begins its work soon after the seed is sown. Being Be-ing so minute' the smut plant is invisible, but thrives at the expense ex-pense of the host plant, . until .the kernels are forming. Then, the -. - -. .-w MtyJ& "Its tnTceiOS 'nito the soft milk grains, robs them pf their nourishment and a crop Pf thousands of black, powdery ' : Ti , spuics die HjJCllCU. 1HCSC JJUW- dery spores are known to. us as """" smut, but they are only the fruit of the real smut, the plant growing grow-ing vvithin the tissues of the host plant. Treatment Farmers used to think that soaking smutty wheat in lime-water would kill the smut germs and render it fit for seed. No doubt this treatment did some good, but it was not entirely effective. ef-fective. Another treatment has been that ot blue-stoning, a solution being used cor-sisting cor-sisting of about three pounds of copper ru'phate (blue vitrol) in five gallons of water. The grain was immersed for at least three minutes. Recent investigations have shown a method much more effective ef-fective and much more convenient conveni-ent to use than either of the above method-;. The formaldehyde treatment consists simply in ad ding one pound or a pint of formaldehyde for-maldehyde (sometimes called formalin) for-malin) to fifty gallons of water and soaring the seed in this solution solu-tion fcr twenty minutes. The grain should then be spread out to dry and shoveled over a few times to faciliate the drying process. pro-cess. VYe usually put about one bus-hel bus-hel of seed in a large burlap sack and immerse the sack the re- quired time. The solution as used is not poisonous an! will not injure the |