FUNGI AND FUNGICIDES 



INTRODUCTION 



Cultivated plants are beset by many enemies. Some 

 of these belong to the animal, and others to the vegeta- 

 ble kingdom. Of the former the insects, and of the lat- 

 ter the parasitic fungi are by far the most important. 

 By the development of these parasitic fungi upon grow- 

 ing crops the peculiar maladies known as fungous dis- 

 eases are produced ; and to these diseases American 

 agriculture annually sacrifices a large percentage of her 

 products. The money value of the loss thus sustained 

 is believed, by those who have studied the subject, to 

 amount to hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. 



It is difficult to determine definitely the amount of 

 damage inflicted over a wide area upon a given crop by 

 its fungus enemies, but it is safe to say that in most 

 cases it is much greater than is ordinarily supposed. 

 The following examples will serve to illustrate the mag- 

 nitude of the loss in the case of certain crops. 



In 1886 Commissioner N. J. Colman, of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, after careful esti- 

 mates, stated : " We may safely assume that the value of 

 the corn and wheat annually destroyed in this country by 

 diseases induced by fungi is not less than $200,000,000." 

 The average annual loss due to the rust of wheat in Illi- 

 nois alone has been estimated, by Professor T. J. Burrill, 



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