306 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



October G, 1917. 



In the first place, although the term mycologist is 

 still generally u?ed in the British Empire, the work 

 is not, in any preponderating sense, mycology. 

 Mr. Ramsbottom adopts the wider American designa- 

 tion plant pathologist, and correspondingly recognizes 

 the necessity of a knowledge of the general principles 

 and practices of agriculture and horticulture, of soils 

 and their properties, and o'" manures. and their effects. 

 His slight hesitation in including also the principles and 

 practices of forestry would disappear were he aware 

 how little the ordinary cacao or lime plantation, to 

 say nothing of the case of rubber, differs in the prob- 

 lems of its formation and management from an 

 artificially established forest. 



The tendency of the mycologist, in earlier days 

 when he really was a mycologist, was to give first 

 attention to the identification of the fungi he found 

 in the lesions of a disease, and secondary attention to 

 the nature of the lesions themselves. Then he might 

 (surprisingly often he did not) give consideration to the 

 position of the host itself in regard to its general 

 environment. The grower, who was properly more 

 concerned about the plant than the fungus, had a 

 corresponding tendency to regard him as a harmless 

 enthusiast without relation to practical matters. 



Though the attitude thus ii.dicated may be con- 

 sidered to be. as a whole, long out of date, its influence 

 still nariows the conception of the (|ualifications 

 required. 



That there is a change takiug place in the scope 

 of the work, the recognition of the need for a wider 

 title signifies. And the difference is more than that 

 arising from the importance now conceded to bacterial 



•diseases and to functional disturbances of unknown 

 origin. The plant pathologist, as he is being shaped 

 by his as.sociation with agriculture, is adding to the 

 function of determining the nature of individual 



•diseases, the consideration of the general circumstances 

 under which they develop. Watching the crop as a 

 medical officer of health watches the population of his 



• district, he recognizes that certain conditions render it 

 liable to corresponding types of disease, in which the 

 preponderance of thi.s or that particular organism, with 

 its specific affection, is more or less a matter of chance. 



Under such circumstances, the study of all the 

 factors which affect the condition of the crop becomes 

 for the plant pathologist, as for the planter, a matter 

 of first importance. On this ground he establishes 

 contact with those exponents of ecology who, starting 

 from the base of physiolog}', are rapidly extending the 



intensive study of the biology of crop plants in the 

 field. 



To see this movement in operation we have to look 

 for the most part, to recent work in the United States of 

 America; but there are British example-i of whao we mean 

 in the studies of Dr. W. L. Balls on the Egyptian cotton 

 plant, and that of Mr. A. Howard on certain Indian 

 crops. It is perhaps some justification of the course 

 of our argument that Mr. Howard began as a mycolo- 

 gist, and Dr. Balls as a cryptogamic botanist — which 

 is hardly more than mycologist written large. It would 

 not be difficult to find examples enough to argue from 

 that these cases represent a general tendency. 



It would appear that there is a definite need for 

 what we may more or less suitably term the agricul- 

 tural ecologist. He could not be called pathologist, 

 for he would be more concerned with healthy plants 

 than diseased ones. He would consider the plant and 

 all its functions in relation to the natural and the 

 artificial factoi's of its environment, and analyse the 

 effect of these upon production. By so doing he would 

 set free the economic botanist to his economics, the 

 plant breeder to his genetics, and, what is more rele- 

 vant to the present argument, enable the pathologist 

 to return to the intensive study of his diseases. 



It remains to be seen how far the loss of time, the 

 waste of energy, and the tendency to empiricism 

 involved in the present British system, in which the 

 newly appointed botanist is in many cases left to be 

 developed by contact with the duties of his position, 

 can be diminished by preliminary training. We have 

 reached the conclusion that there is a necessity, com- 

 pared with which that for purely pathological investi- 

 gations is sectional and subordinate, for the biological 

 study of crops as they grow: and that the results of 

 the investigations of diseases as such depend for their 

 useful application upon knowledge of field conditions 

 which such biological studies would supply. 



Coming to the consideration of University courses 

 in relation to the requirements stated, we would venture 

 the opinion that what is needed, in addition to the 

 provision of post-graduate courses in certain special 

 subjects, i.s the bringing of the subjects of the general 

 botany course into more definite combination. 



The general aim of a botanical education, as we 

 conceive it, should be to envisage, as far as possible, 

 the living plant, as determined by its ancestry, in all 

 its relationships with its environment. That the 

 cuirent allocation of time and interest to the various 



