THE FIGHT W^ITH THE FUNGI 



The Rusts and Rots That Rob Us, the 

 Blasts and the BHghts That Beset Us 



James G. Horsjall 



The title of this article sounds as if the roof were about to fall in on us — as if 

 we have lost or are about to lose the fight with the fungi. Say not so! We have 

 only begun to fight, but fight we must. 



We may easily forget that fungi feed at the same table with us. This is so 

 because they have a ticket to the first sitting. They consume our food in the 

 farmer's field, on the trains and trucks that bring it to us, and in the grocer's 

 store. If this fight go not forward to success, we may one day not be able to 

 smile at the "naivete" of Mr. Malthus who thought that we would soon eat 

 ourselves out of our own food supply. 



Fungi have been on this planet longer than we. They have developed some 

 fantastically efficient devices that serve them in their fight with us. They 

 are well able to search out our food plants so that they also may eat, drink, 

 and be merry. 



It has been fun to help a little in the research to develop the counter meas- 

 ures that we use in our fight with them. Before we come to the counter meas- 

 ures, however, I should like to discuss some of the famous plant diseases of 

 antiquity and how some of them have altered the course of history. 



Three plant diseases of modern times are known to almost everyone. Per- 

 haps the best known is the chestnut blight that swept every chestnut tree 

 from the hills from Maine to Georgia. The second is the Dutch elm disease 

 that is marching down the streets of cities and killing the elms from Montreal 

 to Denver. And the third is oak wilt. It is scaring the wits out of the people 

 who produce the oak flooring for our houses and the kegs for our beer. 



These diseases latch onto our consciousness because they are new and 

 they strike down handsome big trees. These are some of the blasts and blights 



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