Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1874 — Onion-Rust. [ARTICLE]

Onion-Rust.

In a recent experiment, made for the purpose of destroying fungus on the onion, the following mode lias proved very successful: Some specimens were obtained in the market, covered with am-ber-colored fungus. I secured one of them in an inverted glass receiver, which I placed over a beaker filled with nitrous acid. The fumes arising from the acid, without the application of heat, enveloped the onion, and soon dissolved and destroyed the fungus covering its surface. In order to ascertain whether the life of the plant had been destroyed, I placed it in a bulb-glass filled, with water. It sprouted in a few days, and is now in healthy growth on my desk. It has numerous leaves, which have attained a length of six to twelve inches; thus showing conclusively that, in some cases, fungoid growths may be effectually destroyed without injury to the plants on which they grow. This principle admits of many important applications. In some diseases of the potato the surface alone appears to be affected. and the same is true in regard to certain diseases affecting the “tubers, roots, fruits and grains of various other plants, any of which may be readily exposed in large quantities to the fumes of nitrous acid. As nitrous acid has the power of depriving organic bodies of their oxygen, its destructive action on fungus is probably due to this property.— Agricultural Department Reports