STATE P0M01,0CICAIv SOCIETY. IO3 



recent work on the fire blight in nursery stock indicates that 

 a large percentage of the apple, pear and quince trees are lost 

 each year, while the injury from this disease in pear and apple 

 orcliards is often appalling in certain sections. On account of 

 the difficulties of getting accurate records of losses in a suffi- 

 ciently large number of cases, no satisfactory estimate of tlie 

 totol loss to the State from diseases affecting fruit can be 

 made. This loss, however, is annually a heavy drain on the fruit 

 industry of the State and represents one of the most serious 

 leaks in the fruit business; serious because of its proportions 

 and the difficulties of rriucing it. 



The control of the diseases of plants calls for the application 

 of highly technical scientific principles and demands of the 

 grower an exceptional degree of intelHgence and interest. These 

 problems demand in addition to intelligence and education on the 

 part of the grower, the service of highly trained specialists in 

 this field of science, namely plant pathologists or, as we call 

 them, plant doctors. The growers of the State of New York 

 have been especially fortunate in having at their service for 

 the past fifteen years so noted a pathologist as my friend and 

 colleague, Mr. C. F. Stewart of the State Experiment Station 

 at Geneva. Mr. Stewart's studies and investigations have cov- 

 ered an exceptionally wide range of crop diseases but to none 

 has he made greater contributions than to those of fruit. There 

 is scarcely a disease of ouf fruits which he has not at some 

 time studied and toward the control of which he or the men 

 working under him have not contributed suggestions or ex- 

 periments of marked value to our growers. 



But the diseases of fruit are far too numerous and the prob- 

 lem to be solved too complicated to be met and solved by one or 

 even several men, however well trained or experienced. There 

 yet remains endless work to be done before this leak in the 

 fruit business will be entirely stopped. 



USUAL RELATION OF THE STATE TO THE GROWERS IN THE CONTROL 

 OF CROP DISEASES. 



When the speaker came to the work in the New York State 

 College of Agriculture in 1906 he found in operation there the 

 three usual provisions for the investigation and control of plant 



