PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION D, 



be read before your learned Society, but my official position 

 brings me so constantly in contact with cultivators of the 

 soil, many of whom seem to imagine that no practical know- 

 ledge is required to produce a successful cultivator ; that all 

 they have to do is when their crops are sickly bring a sample 

 to some Agricultural Department, and that they will be there 

 and then informed of the name of the disease and the 

 remedy. This fallacy should be stopped at once, for it must 

 be borne in mind that in husbandry theory and book infor- 

 mation are of quite a secondary consideration — practice is 

 the main factor in the case. The failure of so many who 

 have started to cultivate in Queensland has been, in nine 

 cases out of ten, their ignorance of the subject, and this is a 

 science which can never be learned by listening to lectures, 

 however common-sense and practical such may be. The art 

 can only be obtained from actual practice ; thus we should 

 hail with joy the start made by the Australian colonies in 

 forming agricultural and horticultural establishments where 

 the art of husbandry will be fully taught. 



With these few preliminary remarks I will proceed to 

 record the various fungus blights which 1 have observed to 

 attack living vegetation in Queensland during the past 

 twenty years. 



For convenience I have divided the kinds brought under 

 notice into two sections, — in the first Epiphytes, and in the 

 second Parasites. The former include those kinds which 

 are found upon the leaves and twigs of plants, but derive 

 little or no nourishment therefrom, the principal injury done 

 by such being to smother the plants. Mr. Berkeley aptly 

 remarks : — " It would be as rational to expect that plants 

 would thrive under a brown bell-glass as to expect that vege- 

 tation should not be impaired where the greater part of a 

 plant is covered with a thick dark felt." It would seem that 

 these species derive their nourishment from the exudations of 

 insects and the dust and dirt adhering thereto, not from the 

 tree or shrub upon which they may be found ; hence, when 

 we fi'om the name of a species might suppose it to have a 

 preference for a particular genus, it will probably be found 

 that an insect rules in the matter, not the fungus. Then, 

 again, there are several fungi which live only upon the scale- 

 insect infesting our trees and shrubs. For instance, we find 

 the pretty little species Microcera coccophila and M. recti' 

 spora living on the above : these can scarcely be looked upon 

 as plant-blights, except in a secondary sense. 



