6o 



SOME HAWAIIAN CROP BLIGHTS. 



Paper read by Dr. N. A. Cobb, H. S. P. A., at the last Annual 

 Meeting of the Fanners' Institute of Ilaicaii: 



"There is a widespread but erroneous notion that most organic 

 things are more or less inherently frail, and that they decay or 

 rot for reasons to be sought in this frailty. 



Fruits rot : timber decays. It is often assumed that these oc- 

 currences are due to inherent tendencies of the things that rot or 

 decay. 



It is true that all living things have a definite period beyond 

 which they cannot continue in the form of one individual Our 

 own limit has been set at three score and ten years to four score 

 years, or thereabouts. Reaching this limit the human organism 

 runs down. Appetite fails, and food ceases to nourish as it 

 formerly did. The muscles become enfeebled and the nerves 

 no longer respond to the old stimuli. Recollection fades, and 

 as it has been beautifully phrased we "fall on sleep." 



But this consummation is remarkable on account of its rarity 

 rather than its commonness. As a rule before a man can live 

 out his allotted span he is carried off by some accident or disease. 

 He dies not because of some inherent quality but because of some 

 outside cause. He loses his life by accident, or is carried off by 

 some parasitic organism such as that of consumption, cancer, 

 plague or smallpox. 



Wishing to combat an erroneous notion by drawing a parallel 

 I take our own life history as one part of the illustration because 

 it is one with which all are more or less familiar. I think you 

 will have little difficulty in assenting to the statements I have 

 made. 



Now what is true of mankind in this respect is equally true of 

 all things organic. The losses due to rot and decay are as a rule 

 not due to something that w^as inherent in the organic matter that 

 rotted or decayed. In other words it was due to the attack of 

 some organism or to some accident, and was not something that 

 was at that time inevitable. These organic things rot, decay or 

 otherwise perish, as a rule, long before their allotted span, just 

 as we do. And it is just as true of these things that their life 

 can be prolonged as it is that we could prolong human life much 

 beyond the present statistical limit if w^e would only live up to 

 what the more advanced among us vividly realize to be demon- 

 strated fact. No one doubts that if all the individuals of this 

 or any other community would live up to the standard of cleanli- 

 ness and moderation easily shown to l^e best for us, the mortality 

 statistics would be much altered. The amount of suffering would 

 be much less, and the sum of human happiness would be so much 

 the greater. 



