J'l.AN'T DISKASKS AND 1LN'(;I. I () 



amongst the cultivators of the soil in our islands, where the ravages 

 of fungoid disease are yet scarcely estimated at their true value. 



Mildew, rust, smut, and bunt, have long been known to our 

 farmers ; and although, perhaps, less destructive than abroad, yet 

 but little systematic effort has been made to combat these diseases. 

 In Australia the pest of corn rust has been regarded with so much 

 dismay that, in 1890, a conference of delegates was called to 

 consider the subject ; and on this occasion the chairman said ' the 

 first fact which presents itself is the terrible loss that we are every 

 year subjected to. Sometimes two or three colonies have the rust 

 together; at other times one has the rust, and the others escape ; but 

 we are seldom free of it in one or other of the colonies. This last 

 season has been a particularly disastrous year, especially in South 

 Australia. The Minister says that he considers " the loss by rust 

 alone to be equal to ^1,500,000 in that colony. Taking a loss of 

 five bushels less than what the crop would have been had there not 

 been rust, I estimate our loss in Victoria has been equal to that." 

 And again, further on, it is declared that " the total loss suffered by 

 the five colonies during the past season must have been not far short 

 of ;!^2, 500,000 sterling." 



But corn crops are not by any means the only sufferers. It is 

 well known that apple cultivation is an important industry in the 

 United States, to an extent wholly unknown in this country, and yet 

 a terrible pest devastates the orchards, and inflicts grievous injury 

 upon the proprietors. The Commissioner of Agriculture reports 

 that " the distribution of the disease is co-extensive with the cultiva- 

 tion of the fruit which it attacks, although there may be a few 

 favoured localities in which it has not yet appeared. Throughout 

 the Eastern and Central States one is almost certain to find it in 

 every orchard, and on the Pacific slope, in California, it is al.so 

 frequent."' We learn that in several States the extent of loss is said 

 to amount to fully one-half of the crop, while reports Irom other 

 States place the annual loss at from one-fourth to one-sixth of the 

 crop. . The Secretary of the Illinois Horticultural Society estimates 

 the loss t'rom this cause in his State at 20,000 bushels, which gives a 

 loss of 4,000 dollars per county, or about 400,000 dollars for 

 the whole State, In Missouri the loss is estimated at one-half 

 the crop. In Kansas the annual loss is placed, one year with 

 another, at one-fourth of the crop ; and in Indiana it has been 



< " Repi>it of the Cnnfercnre," i ^qi-i, p. (>. 



C 2 



