^°''i^i^^^^ ] ^I<^Alpi.ne, The Romance of Plant Pathology. 127 



THE ROMANCE OE PLANT PATHOLOGY. 



By D. McAlpine, Government Vegetable Pathologist. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists^ Club of Victoria, '^^th August, 1910.; 



One would hardly imagine that a serious science such as plant 

 l)athology, dealing as it does with diseases which sometimes 

 ravage the farmer's crops and ruin his prospects for the season, 

 would have the slightest suspicion of romance about it ; and 

 yet, during an experience of over twenty years in Australia, I 

 have had numerous instances where the, element of humour was 

 certainly not w^anting. The general impression is that the sub- 

 ject of disease does not lend itself to anything approaching levity, 

 and when one is engaged in investigating what might be called 

 the shady side of plant life, there is only the hard wrestling with 

 unpleasant facts and with malodorous specimens which have to 

 be accounted for, and possibly to assign the cause to some insect 

 or fungus with a high-sounding scientific name — the very reverse 

 of what we usually associate with light literature. But even 

 the plant pathologist has his compensations in meeting with 

 really interesting experiences, and I propose to give a few in- 

 stances which have occurred in my own work, and I hope to treat 

 them in such a way that they will illustrate that combination 

 which is so rare in scientific literature — the blending of instruc- 

 tion with amusement. 



It would appear that botanists, among scientific men, are 

 pre-eminently endowed with the saving sense of humour, which 

 is said to be simply another name for a sense of the fitness of 

 things. In a recent number of Nature (26th May) it is stated 

 that " botanists alone, so far as we are aware, have a journal 

 dealing purely with the jests and humours of their subject. The 

 first number of the Sporiophyte, edited by Dr. Marie Stopes, 

 emanates from Manchester University, and is to appear yearly. 

 It contains anecdotes, verse, and articles parodying serious 

 journals, of which the highly technical and friendly humour will 

 appeal to professional botanists." When a journal emanating 

 from a university has the courage to do this, I thought perha])s 

 that a Field Naturalists' Club might not look too severely on a 

 departure from the time-honoured custom of being highly tech- 

 nical and deadly dull, and the following illustrative examples are 

 oftered. 



Red Spots in Bread and Flour. 



Only last month I received from a leading miller in the country 

 a sample of flour with red s]:)ots through it, and it was sent to 

 me evidently for the purpose of settling a dispute, as a neigh- 

 bouring manager contended that it was due to the ink used in 

 branding. Some of you may have observed these spots scattered 

 over the bread or appearing in the flour, and millers and bakers 



