"Yes, I'd like to hear every word you can say about wheat," she said,
with an encouraging little nod.

"Sure she would," added Anderson, with an affectionate hand on her
shoulder. "She's a farmer's daughter. She'll be a farmer's wife."

He laughed at this last sally. The girl blushed. Dorn smiled and shook
his head doubtfully.

"I imagine that good fortune will never befall a farmer," he said.

"Well, if it should," she replied, archly, "just consider how I might
surprise him with my knowledge of wheat.... Indeed, Mr. Dorn, I am
interested. I've never been in the Bend before--in your desert of wheat.
I never before felt the greatness of loving the soil--or caring for
it--of growing things from seed. Yet the Bible teaches that, and I read
my Bible. Please tell us. The more you say the more I'll like it."

Dorn was not proof against this eloquence. And he quoted two of his
authorities, Heald and Woolman, of the State Agricultural Experiment
Station, where he had studied for two years.

"Bunt, or stinking smut, is caused by two different species of
microscopic fungi which live as parasites in the wheat plant. Both are
essentially similar in their effects and their life-history. _Tilletia
tritici_, or the rough-spored variety, is the common stinking smut of
the Pacific regions, while _Tilletia foetans_, or the smooth-spored
species, is the one generally found in the eastern United States.