THE HISTORY AND SCOPE OF PLANT PATHOLOGY 



BY JOSEPH CHARLES ARTHUR 



[Joseph Charles Arthur, Professor of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology, Purdue 

 University, b. Lowville, New York. 1850. B.S. Iowa State College, 1872; 

 M.S. ibid., 1877; D.Sc. Cornell, 1886; Post-graduate, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, 

 1879, University of Bonn, 1896. Botanist, New York Experiment Station, 

 1884-87; Professor of Botany, Purdue University, 1887. Member of the 

 Botanical Society of America; American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science; Indiana Academy of Science; Society for the Promotion of Agricul- 

 tural Science ; Association Internationale des Botanistes ; Torrey Botanical 

 Club; etc. Author of Plant Dissection ; Living Plants and their Properties, etc.] 



PLANT pathology, in so far as it has become a science, is an eminently 

 practical one, and credit must be given for the initiative of its devel- 

 opment largely to the stimulating demands of economic interests. 

 The more intelligent and intensive methods employed in agriculture, 

 horticulture, and floriculture during recent years have emphasized 

 the profitableness of making due provision for maintaining the health 

 of a crop and for evading and combating diseases in their multi- 

 form disguises and modes of attack. It is the reciprocal stimulus 

 of the cry from the commercial world to the man of science that has 

 led to the present highly creditable and valuable understanding of 

 the causes of many forms of diseases in plants, and of their thera- 

 peutic treatment. Although far from being a well-rounded and 

 clearly established science, yet its high standing in the long roll of 

 departments of classified knowledge is widely recognized, and its 

 rapidly increasing growth is as sure to be maintained as the arts of 

 productive commercialism continue to outstrip and dominate those 

 of war. 



Pathology of plants, as an independent subject, having its own 

 lines of growth and its own terminology, is of very recent standing. 

 Essentially all the part that rises much above empiricism and natural 

 deduction from cursory observation has come to light within a quarter 

 of a century. Very little that cannot be quite as properly relegated 

 to mycology, morphology, and physiology antedates 1880. 



The beginnings of the science as displayed in the earliest works 

 giving an independent treatment of the subject are but little more 

 than a century old. These writings are interesting in showing how 

 carefully and effectively the paucity of facts was displayed upon a 

 nomenclatural scaffolding built in imitation of the ancient edifice 

 of human medicine and surgery. A glance at them will prove not 

 only entertaining, but indicate the early lines through which our 

 knowledge has been derived and the primitive influences moulding 



