66 MARKET GARDENING. 



officers of the State Agricultural Society to enter upon 

 farm lands of citizens of that State, where new or dan- 

 gerous parasitic plants are found upon vines, or other 

 plants, and to destroy the crops by fire, the State assum- 

 ing the loss to the farmers. 



The reader of this little volume may conclude that 

 the author has adopted a singular method of promoting 

 amateur gardening, by presenting to the beginner all 

 the evils which can possibly occur to crush the ardor 

 and forestall the labors of the young gardener. Not sat- 

 isfied with dwelling on insect pests infesting gardens, he 

 must here present a dissertation on diseases. 



The observing man already knows that all vegetable 

 life, like the animal, is subject to disease and decay. 

 He has seen strong forest trees with lifeless branches, 

 and fruit trees, as the peach and pear, cease to be pro- 

 ductive. Garden vegetables of weaker development can- 

 not be expected to be exempt, and a very brief survey of 

 the prevalent diseases of a few varieties of field and gar- 

 den plants may be instructive, and lead to such subse- 

 quent critical observation as may be of profit ; as, for 

 many of the diseases of vegetables, there are treatments 

 which may be termed preventive, palliative or curative, 

 and their proper use may, in time, reduce what is now a 

 serious loss in garden products. 



Many of the diseases are the result of unclean soil, 

 which, like an unclean house, is a hotbed of infection ; 

 some are of a foreign origin, brought to this country 

 with seeds and plants, and, as in the case of certain 

 people, flourishing with double vigor under new condi- 

 tions of life. Other diseases, again, of American origin, 

 are carried, like certain insects, from one region to 

 another by our transportation lines ; as, for instance, 

 the Colorado potato beetle, which has flourished for 

 hundreds of years in Colorado and on the plains of Ari- 

 zona, and southward into Mexico, but it never escaped 



