ABSTRACTS 



Authors of scientific papers are requested to see that abstracts, preferably 

 prepared and signed by themselves, are forwarded promptly to the editors. 

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PHYTOPATHOLOGY.— Some of the broader phy to pathological prob- 

 lems in their relation to foreign seed and plant introduction. Beveri^y 

 T. Galloway. Phytopathology 8: No. 3. March, 1918. 



In this paper the author briefly reviews the progress in organized 

 coordinated medical sanitation and emphasizes the results in their 

 relation to plant sanitation; outlines the history of plant-exclusion 

 legislation and points out its bearing on systematic foreign seed and 

 plant introduction; and describes the present intensive work for the 

 protection of new plant introductions against diseases and other enemies 

 and suggests the approaching necessity of similar work for the country 

 at large. 



Certain principles are recognized in the work of the Office of Foreign 

 vSeed and Plant Introduction: 



( 1 ) That the work is international, and the broad phytopathological 

 problems require world-wide consideration and study from the economic 

 as well as from the phytopathological standpoint. 



(2) That regulatory and restrictive measures, which are only pallia- 

 tive at best, must be internationalized to be most effective, and as such 

 measures are generally highly profitable when properly administered 

 they should receive the best support. 



(3) That the science of plant hygiene, or the study of crops in re- 

 lation to environment, offers the broadest field for research and applied 

 science, and that this science will doubtless supplant many prevailing 

 practices in phytopathology as preventive treatment is supplanting 

 curative practices of the old-school physician. 



The need of phytopathological surveys — local, national, and inter- 

 national — is strongly evidenced in the agricultural exploration work, 

 so strongly in fact that the question arises as to whether the risk 

 of introducing injurious diseases and insects is not too great to warrant 

 general agricultural explorations and consequent seed and plant in- 

 troductions, with no check except the necessarily imperfect examinations 

 after the material arrives. 



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