PREFACE 



The fungous diseases of cultivated plants inflict annually 

 xipon American agriculture an enormous loss, a large propor- 

 tion of which might be saved by the application of the various 

 methods of prevention and remedy now known to be available. 

 The purpose of this book is to bring together in easily accessi- 

 ble form, the information concerning the injuries, life-histories, 

 characteristics and preventives of these diseases, now widely 

 scattered through scores of periodicals, bulletins, reports and 

 transactions. In preparing it, free use has been made of all 

 accessible writings upon the subject, a list of which would 

 include the contributions of nearly every American economic 

 mycologist, and of many in other lands. It pretends only to 

 the dignity of a compilation in which the compiler has utilized 

 both the facts and very often the language of others. 



It would be difficult to find, in the annals of agriculture, 

 an instance in which knowledge of the highest practical value, 

 concerning a subject of first importance in the successful pro- 

 duction of the fruits of the earth, has been so rapidly evolved, 

 as has been the case during the last decade, in the investiga- 

 tion of plant diseases and their remedies. Scarcely ten years 

 have passed since there were barely half a dozen scientific men 

 in the United States working upon these problems, from an 

 economic standpoint. Of these, perhaps no one was doing so 

 much, both in original investigation, and in urging the neces- 

 sity that such studies be fostered by the State and general 

 government, as Professor T. J. Burrill, of the University of 

 Illinois. In 1886 Hon, Norman J. Colman, Commissioner of 

 Agriculture, recognized the importance of the subject, by estab- 

 lishing a mycological section of the botanical division of the 

 Department of Agriculture, and appointed Professor F. Lamson- 

 Scribner to take charge of the work. The wisdom of creating 

 the section was soon made manifest to the public at large, by 

 Professor Scribner's demonstration of the practicability of pre- 

 venting the ravages of the black rot of grapes, and other mala- 



V 



