spending all its energies to 

 support the modest or gor- 

 geous leaf that we so much 

 adore, and over which we 

 mourn when we say it is 

 blighted. 



THE ORIGIN OF BLIGHT 



is in the destruction of the 

 smallest rootlets. They are 

 very susceptible to injury. 

 They will droivn or die oj 

 1 hirst. Celery, and potatoes, 

 etc., will blight in prolonged 

 wet spells. They will blight, 

 also, from drought. In one 

 case the rootlets drown, in the 

 other they work as long as 

 they can find moisture, then 

 die of exhaustion dry up. 

 What follows? The leaves 

 droop and die. Then those 

 dead leaves become the feed- 

 ing ground for the fungoids, 

 insects, etc., which we say is 

 blight. 



Photo 101 exhibits to you a case of potato blight. The one to the left was blighted, 

 that to the right was not. These are the same variety of potato, same quality of seed, 

 and planted the same day, June 15, 1901, and cultivated all alike. Crop all did well till 

 the middle of August. The main part of the field was of rather a stiff clay, and below an 

 average quality of fertility. The faithful plants pumped out all the moisture, then, of 

 course, the leaves wilted. The drought continued day after day, and one by one the 

 leaves fell off. What else could take place? At one end of the patch there had been 

 some vegetable pits the fall before. The pits were some 2 feet deep. They were filled in 

 the spring and worked over like the remainder of the field. The potatoes did not blight 



Photo 98. 



Photo 99. 



Photo 100. 



46 



