REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. XIX 



Department's experts on the Pacific coast have been stud34ng the 

 trouble and have been especially successful during the past year in 

 improving the methods of combating it. AVhile much still remains to 

 be accomplished, a treatment has been found which will greatly reduce 

 the injury done bj^ the disease. 



DECAY OF FOREST AND CONSTRUCTION TIMBER. 



Rapid progress has been made during the year in the study con- 

 jointly with the Bureau of Forestry of the diseases of forest trees. 

 Special attention has been given to the diseases in the great forest 

 reservations, and practical methods of controlling some of them have 

 been devised. 



Recently a serious heart-rot disease of catalpa has appeared in some 

 of the western catalpa plantations. A Department expert has studied 

 this rot fungus, found out what it is, and has devised a method to pro- 

 tect the trees against it in the future. The importance of this is appar- 

 ent. The planting of catalpa groves is increasing in several of the 

 Western States. The wood is verj' durable, making good fence posts^, 

 telegraph poles, etc. 



One of the most important subjects connected with the utilization of 

 forests is increasino- the durabilitv of wood when used for constiaic- 

 tion. A careful stud}- of the various methods of preserving wood was 

 begun the past vear by Department experts and much valuable infor- 

 mation obtained. The organisms causing decay of fence posts, sills of 

 buildings, railroad ties, telegraph poles, bridge timbers, greenhouse 

 benches, etc., practically all belong to the group of fungi. The 

 Department believes that cheap and effective methods of treating 

 lumber so as to prevent this decay can be found, and considerable 

 progress was made in this direction the past j^ear. 



PLAKT BREEDING WORK. 



DISEASE-RESISTANT CROPS. 



The most practical way to fight disease is to use nature's method and 

 get disease-resistant or immune plants. Striking success has been 

 achieved by the Department experts in this line. The development 

 of cotton resistant to wilt disease is now an assured fact and has been 

 taken hold of b}' the planters on a large scale. Large tracts of land 

 in the Sea Island district of South Carolina which had been abandoned 

 on account of this disease were planted the past year successfully with 

 resistant strains of cotton, and good crops secured. The discovery 

 during the past 3'ear of a variety' of cowpea — " Little Iron " — resist- 

 ant to "wilt" and "root-knot" (two of the worst diseases of this 

 important crop in the South) is a matter of great importance to South- 

 ern agriculture, where the need of leguminous crops for forage and 



