During the season of 1916 the cereal crop of the middle west suffered another severe epidemic of black stern rust {Pucclnla graminis). It is estimated that this disease caused a loss of $110,000,000 in the wheat growing districts of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska. In the four principal spring wheat growing provinces or Canada the damage was placed at $100,000,000. Altho Iowa did not suffer as severely as adjoining states on the north, yet the damage was probably not less than $5,000,000. Unquestionably, these severe losses are in a large measure responsible for the present high cost or food stuffs. The protection of the cereal crops from this rust Is or importance, not only to the farmer who grows the grain, but also to every bread consumer.