4 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



the distractions of teaching, extension work or office routine; to the 

 science it has rneant a constant stream of invigorating discoveries 

 that account in the main for the viriHty and enthusiasm of its pro- 

 moters. Reflexly it has also meant that the plant pathologist has 

 come to his work only after many years of careful preparation. 



Looking now to the future of government work in plant pathology 

 so generally satisfactory in the past, it may be well at this point to call 

 attention to a situation that is comparatively new. The manufactur- 

 ing and the commercial interests are at last alive to the value of pro- 

 ductive research and in consequence there is a competition for capable 

 investigators such as did not exist a few years ago. If, therefore, 

 governments are to maintain a highly efficient research science it will 

 be absolutely necessary to tangibly recognize ability in research and 

 to weed out or allot suitable tasks to those who do not show capacity 

 in that direction. 



Passing now to the briefest survey of the achievements of plant 

 pathology you will agree with me that the strongest testimony to the 

 substantial benefits that have accrued from fifty years of research in 

 this science is the universal adoption by producers of the methods of 

 control that have been worked out by phytopathologists. Whetzel 

 and Hessler speaking for the farmers and fruit growers remark in the 

 preface to their Manual on Fruit Diseases, "As evidence that the 

 practising agriculturists are rapidly becoming acquainted with the 

 value of scientific knowledge regarding diseases of plants, it is only 

 necessary to point to their interest and co-operation in the matter of 

 obtaining accurate information under field conditions. The prejudiced 

 and critical attitude of the grower is now for the most part of no 

 consequence. Little self-protection is now needed by the experimental 

 plant pathologist; the grower's attitude is no longer antagonistic, but 

 he is friendly and, what is more encouraging, he seeks with confidence 

 the advice of the phytopathologist." Obviously it would be out of 

 the question here to recount all of the achievements of plant pathology; 

 my purpose will be served by reviewing three examples, one from each 

 of three diflferent types of plant industry. 



Referring first to truck crops, there is no more striking example 

 in the entire history of phytopathology of the beneficent results 

 issuing from the scientific study of plant diseases than the conquest 

 of the late potato blight. Here was a disease that swept again and 

 again like a plague over potato-growing countries. In 1846, for 

 example, it so completely destroyed the potato crop in Ireland, on 

 which the majority of the 8,000,000 inhabitants of that country 

 absolutely depended, that 200,000 to 300,000 died of starvation, more 



