Dr. Julius Kuhn in Mitteilungen des Landwirthschaftlichen Instituts de Universitat Halle for March, 1889, advises the following treatment of grain seed as a preventive of smut: The seed is first soaked for at least twelve hours in a one-half per cent, solution of copper sulphate, which should be used in such a quantity as to cover the lot of seed to the height of the hand. The above mixture of copper sulphate can be made by dissolving one pound of copper sulphate in 22 gallons of water. This solution if then poured off and the seed mixed with milk of lime, as the rate of one pint of the liquid to every pound of the seed to be treated. To prepare the milk of lime, one pound of the best quick-lime is carefully slaked and mixed with ten and one-half gallons of water. The seed should be in contact with the lime water for about five minutes. It is then poured off, and without washing with water the seed is spread thinly upon a floor to dry. The sowing of the seed should then follow as soon as possible. The seed should be carried to the field in sacks, which have previously been soaked in the one-half per cent. solution of copper sulphate for 16 hours, and then washed in water.

The author claims that the germinating qualities of the seed are not in the least injured by this process.