STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 139 



THURSDAY EVENING. 



The President called the meeting to order at seven o'clock, and 

 announced as the first exercise of the evening an essay from Prof. Bur- 

 rill, from the Committee on Botany and Vegetable Physiology, who 

 read as follows: 



LETTUCE MOULD AND LEAF BLIGHTS. 



The past summer, though not generally regarded as a fruitful one, 

 was abundantly so when the fungus hunter's objects are considered. The 

 wet weather, so long continued, brought out myriads of lowly-organized 

 creatures to prey upon those of more exalted station. The air towards 

 autumn became filled with spores, so that it was hardly possible to make 

 an observation through the microscope without catching a glimpse of one 

 or more kinds of the stragglers. The small grains, the corn, the leaves 

 of fruit trees and of garden plants were attacked in a wholesale manner, 

 seldom equalled in our country. The larger fungi grew abundantly in 

 the woods and pastures, and some lovers of good things to eat had a 

 chance to gratify their appetites, as rarely enjoyed with us, upon the escu- 

 lent mushrooms. Some kinds were even offered for sale in the markets, a 

 thing never seen before in Illinois by the writer. But the day is surely 

 coming when more attention will be paid to these depised things as an 

 article of food. The grasshopper may be good eating, but the prejudice 

 of the people will banish it from the table long after it shall have become 

 common for epicures to eagerly seek for the dainty fungus, and the labor- 

 ing man to enjoy his mushroom beef-steak. These large fungi are not, 

 however, leaf blights. Some of them are exceedingly destructive to wood, 

 and others quickly rob the soil of its richness ; yet, in amount of injury 

 done, they are innocent and inactive compared with the minute things 

 visible only through the magnifier. The effects, alas ! are easy enough to 

 discern, but the agents themselves are much below the scrutiny of ordi- 

 nary observation. Sometimes their numbers become so great as to be 

 visible objects, but even then the uninitiated are apt to take them for dis- 

 tortions of the plant itself, corroding sap, or bespattered dirt. Leaves 

 curl and swell, or become a sickly yellow and waste away, sometimes fall- 

 ing as in autumn, sometimes becoming black and withering upon the 

 branches. Whoever has witnessed the destruction of a crop of wheat by 

 rust in, seemingly, a few hours' time, can appreciate the virulence of 

 these minute parasites, for nothing can be more certain than that the fun- 

 gus known as Puccinia granimis causes this trouble. At the last meeting 

 of this Society, at Peoria, the apple scab came under discussion, and I 

 determined then to make this malady the subject of investigation and the 

 title of the present report, but the scab this year gave little chance for 



