240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



defy all human ingenuity to comprehend or control. But one 

 by one they are explored, until what before was dark, seems 

 illumined by a radiance almost divine. To all of us, for instance, 

 has been brought home, the sad and sudden and distressing 

 calamity, " the terror which walketh in darkness, and the 

 destruction which wasteth at noon-day." Stricken homes and 

 wasted fields are too familiar to all men. And man seems 

 to have been powerless, thus far, in anticipating or prevent- 

 ing the ravages of contagious diseases and epidemics, or of 

 destroying the swarms of destructive insects which invade his 

 crops. And now Mr. Huxley steps forward and declares : " It 

 is at present a well-established fact that certain diseases, both 

 of plants and of animals, which have all the characters of con- 

 tagious and infectious epidemics, are caused by minute organ- 

 isms. The smut of wheat is a well-known instance of such a 

 disease, and it cannot be doubted that the grape disease and the 

 potato disease fall under the same category. Among animals, 

 insects are wonderfully liable to the ravages of contagious and 

 infectious diseases caused by microscopic fungi." Now, re- 

 jecting entirely the idea that Mr. Huxley could even " expect 

 to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from the 

 not living matter," — and accepting the theory that the origin 

 of pestiferous particles, even, " is to be accounted for by the 

 ordinary process of the generation of like from liko," — may 

 we not believe with him that the nature and cause of many a 

 scourge will be one day as thoroughly understood, "as is now 

 the microscopic organism of Pebrine, and that the long-suffered 

 massacre of our innocents will come to an end ? " 



It is indeed a consolation to us to know that microscopic 

 investigation has revealed the fact that many contagious diseases, 

 which have been more destructive than war and famine, " are 

 dependent for their existence and their propagation upon 

 extremely small living solid particles," which, if they are par- 

 asites, " may be stamped out by destroying their germs." The 

 destruction of these germs for the prevention of contagious 

 diseases among men and domestic animals, and the employment 

 of parasite germs for the destruction of insects injurious to 

 vegetation, present to the practical scientist vast opportunities 

 for useful exploration, and for actual service to mankind, which 

 would be forever held in grateful remembrance. It is in such 



