1911-12.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 13 



portance 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 phvtopatho- 

 logical 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 

 £18,002,4-12, and this year the Department has at its dis- 

 posal about £4,000,000, double of what it was in last decade. 

 The Department 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 £4.514.003. 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 funo-us. 

 Diaporthe parasitica, a wound parasite which attacks the 

 main trunk or branches of old and young trees. It first 

 attacked the native American chestnut, 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 1906. 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 chestnut- 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 811,000,000. The quantity 

 used for railway ties alone amounts to 83.000.000 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 



