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AN EPITOME OF BACTERIAL DISEASES OF PLANTS 

 IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



By SYDNEY G. PAINE. 



{Lecturer in Plant Bacteriology in the Department of Plant Physiology 

 and Pathology, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.) 



The study of bacteria in relation to plant diseases is a branch of plant 

 pathology which has been largely neglected in this country. In fact it is 

 unfortunate that plant pathology as a whole has not received the amount 

 of attention at the hands of English botanists that its importance in 

 agriculture and horticulture demands. Bacteriology in particular has 

 suffered from neglect to such an extent that the knowledge of bacterial 

 diseases of plants occurring in this country is limited to a very few 

 diseases only. It would indeed be fortunate if this were due to the non- 

 existence of others, but there is no reason to believe that the activities 

 of bacterial parasites are less here than they are in other countries with 

 a temperate climate. The unsatisfactory state of affairs was deplored by 

 Prof. Potter in 1910(35) and since that time very little has been done to 

 improve the position. The question calls for the urgent attention of 

 botanists in order that this, which can only be described as a national 

 disgrace, may be immediately remedied. Until quite recently no one in 

 this country has applied himself solely to the study of bacterial diseases. 



The leaflets of the Board of Agriculture include only six diseases 

 attributed to bacteria (25) whereas in a general conspectus of bacterial 

 diseases E. F. Smith (45) has compiled a list of 140 genera distributed 

 through more than fifty families in which such diseases are known to 

 occur. 



Our present knowledge of bacterial diseases is mainly due to the 

 American plant pathologists and the main reason why we in this country 

 are so far behind the Americans in this respect is that we have no state- 

 aided department of plant pathology which is in the least comparable 

 with that of the American Bureau of Plant Industry. Other reasons are 

 to be found in the facts that plant pathology and plant bacteriology in 

 particular as a general rule form either no part or only a very subsidiary 

 part of the curriculum of the botany student and that where such training 

 is included in his curriculum the student is more attracted by the 



