Chapti-r V 



INVESTIGATIONS IN PLANT PATHOLOGY PLACFiD ON 

 A NATION-WIDE BASIS 



DL'RING THE YEAR 1889 agents of the Section of Vegetable 

 Pathology were located in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, 

 \'irginia. South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michi- 

 gan, and California. Already several accomplishments were justi- 

 fying the work. A few years earlier, the nation-wide grape- 

 growing industry was believed threatened by abandonment of 

 whole areas. But the situation was more hopeful now. In 1887 

 the successful treatment of black rot and by 1889 promising 

 results from experimental treatments of anthracnose and downy 

 and powdery mildew had greatly encouraged growers. Several 

 potato diseases had been brought under control. Before 1887 

 few, if any, efforts had been made to control some serious nursery 

 stock diseases which damaged foliage and interfered with the 

 proper budding of fruit in apple, pear, plum, cherry, etc.; and 

 large amounts were rendered valueless. Experimental treatments 

 were started in 1888 and within several years it would be demon- 

 strated that some of the more destructive of the maladies could be 

 controlled.^ 



In 1889 Galloway said: ^ 



It must be remembered that the work we are engaged in is entirely new; 

 there is no beaten path of precedent to follow, consequently it is to be 

 expected that failure will sometimes follow our efforts. Heretofore the 

 work of this nature has been confined almost entirely to grape diseases, 

 since this year we have broadened our field, increasing thereby, as we have 

 good grounds for believing, the usefulness of our labors. . . . Plans have 

 been made for an extended series of experiments next season in the treat- 

 ment of peach-rot and blight, a disease which ranks next to yellows in its 

 destructiveness to the peach crop. We also propose to attempt something 

 in the way of combatting pear blight, a disease which has yet baffled every 

 effort at control. The work on apple-scab and other apple and pear 

 diseases will be extended, and special endeavor will be made to discover 



^ B. T. Galloway, Report of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, for 1889, op. cit., 

 399, 405 ; Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United States, Yearbook 

 of the U. S. Dep'l of Agric. for 1899: 195, 197-199. 



'^ Report for 1889, op. cit., 419-420. 



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