45S STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the cultivator, who wonders and worries over the sickly condition of his plants. 

 By the aid of the microscope they may be seen and studied, but no one sees 

 them bite, neither are poison sacks found at the base of horrid teeth, by which 

 tlie mischief is accomplished. It is therefore necessary to patiently watch the 

 efifects of their growth in the special case at hand, as well as to know, as fully 

 as possible, the general conditions and requirements of both the healthy and 

 diseased states of all the organisms under consideration. 



Now, in a general way, it is well known that the conditions of growth 

 are very different between fungous and other plants. They seem to be 

 the opposites of each other. With rare exceptions, all other plants are 

 dependent upon light for their existence. Deprived of sunlight, they speedily 

 perish. The potato, stored as it is with prepared material, sprouts in 

 the cellar, but only attains a feeble, useless development, adding noth- 

 ing to its substance. House plants, provided with the best soil, and 

 receiving the best attention in other respects, fail utterly with the window 

 curtains down. Even field crops languish in cloudy weather, when other con- 

 ditions are best suited to their growth. How different with the fungi ! Mush- 

 rooms are splendidly grown in the catacombs of Paris, — those underground 

 caverns, where darkness perpetually reigns. Moulds luxuriate in the darkest 

 cellar, perfecting their fruit without a ray from the sun's sustaining disc. 

 Thieves and evil-doers excepted, the fungi are the only living beings that could 

 consistently rejoice over the entire withdrawal of light from the earth. Other 

 plants take from the atmosphere carbonic acid, and restore the ox3'gen, but 

 fungi, like animals, take oxygen, and pour forth carbonic acid. This fact 

 alone shows how radically different the principles of nutrition are in the fung- 

 ous and the other plants. The prime office of vegetation is to build up organic 

 products from inorganic elements, and plants alone possess the power of doing 

 this. Animals consume these products, combustion and decay disorganize and 

 reduce them to their original status. But fungi form the exception among 

 plants, and, like these last, are altogether destructive. Incapable of feeding 

 themselves from the inorganic earth and air, they prey upon the elaborated 

 products from these materials, accumulated by their accommodating relatives 

 in the vegetable kingdom. Such are some of the peculiar characteristics of 

 the fungi as a class. Of these there is no question as to their truthfulness ; but, 

 as indicated above, the disputed point is whether or not any of the fungi are 

 capable of attacking, feeding upon, and so, perhaps, destroying other plants 

 previously in healthy, vigorous condition, or, in other words, whether the fun- 

 gous parasites really cause, and are not the resufts of, disease, 



I have said the special province of vegetation was to take from the inor- 

 ganic elements and manufacture the organic. Let it be noted, however, that 

 this implies more than simple chemical combinations. The vital power of the 

 plant, aided by sunlight, rends asunder these combinations, overmasters the 

 usual chemical affinities, and, in spite of their attractions, builds up its tissues. 

 But the moment its life is gone, these affinities again triumph, and decompo- 

 sition begins. Now, fungi hasten the ruin, apparently lending their life force 

 to augment the power of the natural attractions of the particles for each 

 other, as wolves follow the herds of buffaloes, to make quick work with the 

 lame and weakened ones that linger behind. The vital force stands guard 

 alone against the destroyers. Is it not likely that it, too, shall at times be 

 defeated? Remembering that the parasite has, as well as the host, this mys- 

 terious endowment of life, may not its forces, in many engagements, sometimes 



