PREFACE. vii 



sively and simultaneously about him in sickness 

 and in health, and about his surroundings, etc., I 

 begin to wonder whether there is not after all 

 something to be said for the cultivator's point of 

 view. 



Moreover, the cultivator knows a good deal 

 about his plants which I do not know, and 

 although I should much like to know it, his plea 

 of want of time rings in my ears and the con- 

 viction strikes home that one ought to try and 

 meet his views, and tell him something about 

 disease as manifested in plants without insisting 

 on his becoming a professional mycologist, ento- 

 mologist, agricultural chemist, and philosopher. 



Of course, beyond a certain point, it is his look- 

 out how much the information is worth, and its 

 educational value a very different matter -is 

 sure to suffer from any restrictions imposed on 

 the treatment of the subject ; but if the theme of 

 disease in plants, treated from a general point of 

 view I was about to write " treated in a popular 

 manner," but that is impossible until physiology 

 and mycology are more widely taught enables 

 him to understand better the questions he puts to 

 himself, and, still more, if it stimulates him to 

 enquire further into the inexhaustible field of 

 science glimpsed at, something may come of it. 



The purpose of these essays is to treat the 

 subject of disease in plants with special reference 

 to the patient itself, and to describe the symptoms 

 it exhibits and the course of the malady, with 

 only such references to the agents which induce 



