SOME MODERN ASPECTS OF APPLIED BOTANY 33 
The method of dealing with outbreaks of disease when they occur 
locally may be of advantage locally, but individual or isolated action, 
though of use, is of very little avail in stamping out an existing or 
preventing a threatened epidemic, because the methods employed 
are not fundamental, they do not strike at the root of the disease. 
In stamping out disease we must have properly organised and 
combined action, otherwise the best efforts are bound in the long- 
run to prove futile. 
The Americans were among the first to realise the importance of 
plant disease as a national economic question, on account of the 
enormous loss which, we have seen, may be caused thereby, and 
they have a special phytopathological section in their Department of 
Agriculture, which Department dates from 1889 and has a Cabinet 
Minister at its head. The aggregate appropriation since 1900 is 
£18,002,412, and this year the Department has at its disposal about 
44,000,000, double of what it was in last decade. The Depart- 
ment employs a staff of 12,480 men and women, 600 to 700 of whom 
are engaged in scientific research. The money appropriated for the 
Department in all its branches of activity would amount to 
44,514,003. In spite.of the magnitude of this sum, it is regarded 
in America as an investment, and not an expenditure. 
An interesting item is the vote of £1000 for the study of the 
Chestnut Bark disease. 
The Chestnut Bark disease is caused by a fungus, Diaporthe 
parasitica, a wound parasite which attacks the main trunk or branches 
of old and young trees. It first attacked the native American chest- 
nut, but it has spread to the Japanese chestnut and other varieties. 
This disease was first discovered by Dr. Murrill in New York 
Botanical Gardens in 1905, and reported on by him in rgo6. It 
spreads with great rapidity. 
The chestnut trees of Greater New York have all been attacked 
and practically destroyed. Many valuable trees have been destroyed 
in all the counties of New Jersey. It has gone through Connecticut 
westward to the Berkshire Hills, and has spread over Long Island and 
Staten Island, and has reached far enough west to invade a large 
area in Pennsylvania. Unless some means is found to arrest the 
disease, it bids fair to ruin the growth of chestnuts in America, where 
the timber is highly prized for railway sleepers and posts, mining 
timber, and farm purposes. In rough construction it is used 
extensively. Government reports show that the yield in 1907 was 
650 million feet B.M., of an estimated value of $11,000,000. The 
quantity used for railway ties alone amounts to $3,000,000 per year. 
The ‘‘Gardener’s Chronicle of America” concludes an article on 
this disease as follows :—“‘ The loss upon which it is most impossible 
to estimate in dollars is the loss to tree lovers and tree owners, who 
would not take any amount of money for the stately forest veterans 
which have been the pride of their estates. There are large areas 
of territory not yet reached by the fungus. We may hope that its 
course may be run, or that study and experiment may evolve an 
5 
