THE FIGHT WITH THE FUNGI 5 1 



that beset us, but what really rob us are such diseases as wheat rust and 

 potato rot. 



Wheat rust is perhaps the most famous disease of antiquity, and it is still 

 with us. Wheat rust robs us of our bread, the very staff of life. Those of us 

 who went through both World Wars remember the "wheatless days" of World 

 War I. We had wheatless days in that war because 1917 was one of those 

 years when wheat rust swept the plains and consumed the grains like a prairie 

 fire. The wheat rust fungus ate most of our bread at the first sitting. We 

 had to settle for rice and corn bread. 



We were lucky during World War II. Wheat rust did not stage another 

 such ruinous raid, and we did not have wheatless days. Of course, scientific 

 research had also been at work in the meantime and had won part of the 

 fight with that fungus. 



Wheat rust was known to the Israelites, who talked about it in Genesis. It 

 was known to the Romans. And it was known in Colonial America. On this 

 last point, there hangs a tale of the impact of a plant disease on civilization. 

 This is the tale of how wheat rust altered the eating habits of a group of people. 



When the English colonists came to America, some settled in New England, 

 and others in tidewater Virginia, Plymouth and Jamestown being settled 

 within a few years of each other. Undoubtedly, both groups of immigrants 

 brought wheat with them, and they both found the Indians growing corn. 

 The wheat rust disease, however, acted differently on the wheats in the two 

 colonies, just as it does today. 



WHEAT RUST ALTERS EATING HABITS 



Wheat rust is a much more serious disease in a warm than in a cool climate. 

 It was to be expected, therefore, that wheat rust proved much more damaging 

 to the Colonial crops of wheat in warm Virginia than in cool New England. 

 It is probable that the settlers of Virginia found wheat a difficult crop on 

 account of rust, whereas the settlers of New England found wheat a good 

 crop, as it had been in England itself. 



It seems to me quite likely that wheat rust explains today's difference 

 between the carbohydrate diets of the southern and the northern United 

 States. Bread, we say, is the "staff of life." In the South bread means corn 

 bread. In the North bread means wheat bread. 



I submit that wheat rust was so destructive in the South that the colonists, 

 perforce, had to eat corn bread, grits, and hominy. Difficult as food habits are 

 to change, the southern colonists had to change from wheat to corn. Wheat 

 bread was so rarely obtainable in the South that it came to have its own 

 name, light, or white, bread. 



Wheat grew well enough in the North, so that wheat bread remained the 

 ''staff of life." 



