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the spread of this disease? Is it worth while doing so? What 

 are the best methods to use While no one, perhaps, will ven- 

 ture to prophesy the outcome, all doubtless agree that the great 

 interests at stake justify an aggressive fight; and all alike are 

 anxious to see the w r arfare waged in the most effective way. 

 Other contests against fungous foes have been won in spite of 

 apparently insuperable obstacles, and we now look back from 

 the vantage ground of knowledge gained through the contests, 

 and wonder that the tasks should have seemed hard. Each year 

 witnesses the conquest of more than one important pest, just as 

 each year is apt to bring into the limelight some hitherto unob- 

 trusive pest. Mention might be made of scores of animal and 

 plant pests that, in the wide interchanges incident to modern 

 civilization, have been brought into contact with new host species, 

 or with new environmental conditions, and have forthwith en- 

 tered upon a period of riotous devastation. At the present time, 

 federal and state resources are being drawn upon, and concerted 

 state action is being had, in the fights against the gypsy and 

 brown-tail moths in New England, and against the cotton boll 

 weevil in the southwestern portion of the cotton belt. I cannot 

 refrain from recalling to mind the eradication of the cattle tick 

 in certain districts within its range, and the stamping out of yel- 

 low fever in territory undtr United State jurisdiction, as notable 

 examples of success that has* in recent times come from complete 

 knowledge of the situations, combined with efficient administra- 

 tion. As a citizen of Pennsylvania, I take pride in pointing to 

 the successful suppression of the foot and mouth disease of cattle, 

 during 1008, by the State Livestock Sanitary Board in co-opera- 

 tion with the Federal Bureau of Animal Industry. These were 

 ciiiupaigns of quarantine and sanitation. 



These examples of very diverse nature do not prove anything in 

 regard to the chestnut bark disease; but they do serve to em- 

 phasize the fact that persistent effort in the right direction may 

 win in the face of great odds. 



To the specialist in plant diseases, a most interesting question 

 is, why is it that this disease has made such headway in this coun- 

 try in so short a time. Is it that there are factors involved, aside 

 from administrative difficulties, that are not found in the many 

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