Photo 93. 

 BLIGHT. 



Blight is not in itself a disease, as people are 

 in the habit of supposing. Many eminent authori- 

 ties have erred concerning this. They have taken 

 the microscope and discovered countless numbers 

 of spores, fungoids and infinitesimal insects feed- 

 ing on the dead foliage of the plant, and they seem 

 to have hastily drawn the conclusion that these 

 creatures have killed the plant. 



The microscope does not mislead us; there are 

 the spores and insects on the dead leaf. Aye! Aye! 

 But what killed the leaf? Was it the creatures that 

 you behold ? or was it something else ? It was not 

 these creatures; they had not the power to kill a 

 healthy plant. Health defies all disease ! Medi- 

 cal science, I think, now claims that there is no 



such thing as a new disease ; that the germs of disease are all the while in existence. But 

 if conditions become favorable any malady may make its appearance. Everything feeds 

 on death. Maggots feed on putrid carcases; toadstools and other fungoid substances exist 

 on rotten vegetation; we derive our nourishment from dead animals, dead vegetables 

 and dead grain and fruit. Plants and trees are nourished by composts from other vege- 

 tation, etc., and the creatures seen on the blighted (dead) leaf of a plant have the same 

 legitimate right to sustain their lives as we have. Again I ask, 



WHAT KILLED THE LEAF? 



The answer is one of the simplest, namely: Too much or not enough water. On 

 page 15 we call your attention to the birth of the mammoth elm. What was true of that 

 little seed is true of all seeds that develop into a plant or tree. Soak a grain of wheat or 

 corn, then cut it open and study it; or, better still, soak an acorn. When the shell begins 

 to crack, open it up. There are two lobes called the cotyledons (seed leaves). In them 

 is stored up food enough to nourish this little, unborn baby oak. At the bottom of these 



lobes is attached a lump, some- 

 what hard ; this is called the 

 "radicle. ' ' In the center of this 

 is a little point called the "plum- 

 ule." Moisture and heat act 

 upon this seed and it becomes 

 excited into life. The radicle 

 goes doiun and throws out very 

 minute, hair-like rootlets. At 

 the same time the plumule 

 moves upward and carries the 

 seed-leaves out to the air. The 



Photo 94. 



plumule in the seed is really the 



41 



