172 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of anatomy or a sailor hope to become a captain without study- 

 ing navigation. " 



Even though the practical horticulturist or agriculturist must 

 know much about how plants live and how they are subject to 

 diseases, much of his information must come second hand from 

 the specialist. The old time botanist, who with hand-lens and 

 dissecting needles, and possibly compound microscope and a 

 wise look, could tell you all about a plant disease, bears the 

 same relation to the modern pathologists, that the practitioner 

 of the middle ages does to the skilled physician and surgeon of 

 the present day. Experiments must be carried on in field, 

 plant-house, and laboratory, by an investigator skilled in modern 

 laboratory methods. It is from these specialists who should 

 combine a knowledge of the practical with the scientific that the 

 most may be expected. There are many cases where it would be 

 just as unwise for the fruit grower to rely on his own judgment 

 in regard to the nature and treatment of a plant trouble as it 

 would be for him to fail to summon the family physician in case 

 of an attack by some infectious disease. Rather than rely on 

 his own limited experience and skill he should consult with the 

 expert who has the scientific training that will enable him to 

 probe to the bottom of the trouble. 



Plant troubles in general may be divided into three main 

 classes in which various agents are the causes of the disturb- 

 ances of the functions and activities that threaten the life of the 

 entire plant or materially injure some of its parts or lesson its 

 value as an article of culture. What may be termed inorganic 

 troubles due to unfavorable soil relations, atmospheric in- 

 fluences, etc., are to a great extent cared for by the scientific 

 agriculturist; the insect troubles are mostly in the hands of the 

 entomologist; and the diseases of plants due to other organisms, 

 quite naturally fall to the lot of the botanist. Botanists are 

 then the ones who have taken up the investigation of plant 

 diseases due to parasites other than insects, yet but few botan- 

 ists have been familiar with the exact methods of research that 

 have been productive of such brilliant results in the study of the 

 infectious diseases of domestic animals and man, and conse- 

 quently much of the work has been little more than catalogues 

 of plant troubles. More botanists have in recent years fitted 



