FUNGOUS AND BACTERIAL DISEASES 



213 



types. It may be possible for each pupil to make a table 

 giving for each fruit, vegetable, and farm crop the loss caused 

 by fungi that is, to answer the question, What part of the 

 half -billion-dollar tax does my home pay? A suggestion for 

 such a table is given below. 



LOSSES CAUSED BY FUNGI ON A GRAIN FARM OF 320 ACRES l 



National and world problem. The general situation is aptly 

 expressed by the complaint heard on every hand: 



The world is not fit to live in any more, and it 's getting worse and 

 worse every year. We never used to hear about all these new-fangled 

 diseases all the time, and everything didn't use to rot and smut and 

 blight when I was a girl back on the old farm. 



This is literally true and for several good reasons. People 

 did not then know what was eating them out of house and 



1 Wheat is supposed to be affected with stinking smut, which Duggar says 

 sometimes takes "from one half to two thirds of a crop" of some sections. 

 L >ose smut, corn smut, and early blight are the fungi supposed to have 

 attacked the oats, corn, and potatoes respectively. Estimates are not ex- 

 ec ssive. The percentages for the wheat, oats, and corn are figured by count- 

 ing 100 stalks taken at random in ten different parts of the field. (Save 

 st veral of these bundles of wheat or oats for demonstration in the labo- 

 rs tory and at neighborhood meetings.) The potatoes are estimated from 

 u-oial results in case of sprayed and unsprayed field plots. The cost of 

 ti eating the wheat and oats with formalin would have been a trifling 

 h surance against the loss incurred. 



2 Cost of three sprayings and one pruning for blight, bitter rot, etc. 



