viii PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION 



position always to cope as successfully as we could wish with 

 human ailments, so we must not undervalue the importance 

 of the triumphs of the much younger baby science plant- 

 pathology. 



Probably few people in this country are really aware of the 

 enormous strides towards lusty and vigorous youth the new 

 science is now making, and what important contributions to 

 human progress its study is affording. 



Educated and properly trained agriculturists and foresters 

 have long been familiar with the fact that great advances are 

 being made in these directions, and perhaps the only fault 

 that a very severe critic could find with them is that they have 

 remained a little too long deterred by the failures which have 

 always to be acknowledged (and met) in a progressive experi- 

 mental science. That much more general interest in this pro- 

 gress is now evident, however, is best proved by the various 

 publications on the treatment of plant-diseases which are 

 springing up around Us ; for even the very sceptical will admit 

 that, on the one hand, the treatment of diseases depends on 

 knowledge of them and their origin, and, on the other hand> 

 that such eminently practical works would not be published 

 unless they were read. 



Foremost among such publications are the reports of the 

 various experimental stations on the continents of Europe and 

 America, and it is a matter of the highest credit and con- 

 gratulation that the Americans are devoting large sums of 

 money to the experimental study of methods of treatment, 

 based on knowledge of the diseases treated, at several of their 

 enthusiastically planned experimental stations. I need only 

 point to the reports published by the United States Department 

 of Agriculture (Section of Vegetable Pathology), and to the 

 Zeitschrift filr Pflanzen-Krankheiten emanating under the 

 auspices of the " International Phytopathologischen Kommis- 

 sion," as showing how necessary it is becoming to have special 

 organs in this branch of science, and to the increasing number 

 of text-books on the subject of plant-diseases and their treat- 



