Presidential Address. F. T. Brooks. 31 



the human body so must the mycologist have a broad training 

 in the general principles of botany, and apart from a special 

 knowledge of fungi, his mind must be imbued \\'ith the im- 

 portance of plant physiology. Without a clear insight into plant 

 functions, a mycologist will often fail to see the most important 

 aspects of disease in plants. With plant physiology of such great 

 significance, the botanist who is going to become a mycologist 

 must have received an adequate training in chemistry and 

 physics, for without these foundations, the biologist in general 

 and the mycologist in particular vdW be se\-erely limited unless 

 his work happens to be of an entirely morphological nature. 

 By this emphasis upon the stud}' of chemistry and physics 

 even for the mycologist, I do not \\-ish to minimise the im- 

 portance of the study of natural history. Many of us, myself 

 included, were led into scientific studies through the naturalist 

 instinct, and for training in observation and discrimination there 

 can be no finer introduction than the cultivation of this instinct. 

 For the plant pathologist, the outlook of the naturalist is a 

 splendid asset, but by itself it is not enough for the solution of 

 the intricate problems of plant disease. Our young mycologist 

 then should be a trained botanist \nth a physiological outlook 

 and with the instinct of the naturalist perhaps in addition. He 

 may now proceed to obtain a wider acquaintance \nth fungi 

 and plant diseases, and may perhaps take short courses in 

 bacteriology and entomology. Even then his training in my 

 opinion will fall short of what is desirable. At this stage he 

 may go abroad and take up a post as mycologist and plant 

 pathologist. If he has been li\-ing in contact ^^•ith the land his 

 outlook upon the plant industry he has been sent to aid will 

 probably be sound, but if he has not been brought into contact 

 with growing crops, he will be gravely handicapped in dealing 

 with diseases of economic importance. He may be supremely 

 expert in laboratory investigation, but may utterly fail when 

 brought into contact with a practical problem, because a sense 

 of crop values has never been inculcated in him. Cultivators 

 sometimes make the complaint that the remedy is worse than 

 the disease, but where such remedies are suggested, they are 

 always based upon ignorance of crops and their economics. 

 Again as already indicated, the influence of en\ironment as a 

 serious factor in the causation of plant disease is of immense 

 importance, and unless the investigator has his attention fixed 

 upon all aspects of the crop, as well as upon the pathogen, his 

 efforts will often be doomed to failure. I suggest, therefore, 

 that during the later stages of his training, the embryo mycolo- 

 gist be given some familiarity with the growi:h of crop plants, 

 especially as regards the influence of cultural and climatic 



