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[APRIL 14, 1923 
Pathology of Market Produce. 
[DURIN G recent years great efforts have been made 
by the biologist to gain such a knowledge of the 
diseases of cultivated crops as will permit methods of 
control to be placed at the disposal of the grower. 
A reference to the pages of the Annals of Applied 
Biology, the official organ of the Association of 
Economic Biologists, together with the number of 
other papers published each year dealing with the 
life history of disease-producing organisms infecting 
plants, will show that considerable progress has been 
made in this still comparatively new field. But some 
brief papers published in Phytopathology, the official 
organ of the American Phytopathological Society, will 
show that in the United States a new field of scientific 
investigation has been opened between the cropand the 
consumer. Much of the produce, especially of market 
garden and greenhouse, is extremely perishable, and 
the cost of fruit or vegetables to the consumer is 
largely contributed to by the heavy loss that occurs 
during transit and marketing. 
In 1917 in the States a Food Products Inspection 
Service of the Bureau of Markets was established and 
was soon working in close collaboration with the 
trained investigators of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 
As is pointed out by G. K. K. Link and M. W. 
Gardner in a brief review of the first year’s work that 
resulted from the joint attack upon the pathology of 
market crops (Phytopathology, 9, pp- 497-520), the 
first result was a revelation of the enormous economic 
importance of the problem, to which the long distances 
of transit in the United States naturally contributed. 
In water-melons alone, from four States during 1918, 
themarket inspection services record a loss of 1} million 
dollars, while hundreds of car loads of grapes from 
California were almost a total loss, due to decay 
induced by Botrytis, Penicillium, and Aspergillus. 
Furthermore it was found that these losses, stoically 
borne by the trade as ‘‘ part of the game” and passed 
on to the consumer, very largely arose from preventable 
causes, with the result that pathologists are being 
pressed to extend their survey from the growing crop 
to the study of the crop during harvesting, storing, 
shipping, and marketing. 
Another line of biological inquiry has also been 
indicated : the task of salvage when prevention of loss 

is no longer possible. Most of these diseases are 
fermentation processes, and a controlled fermentation 
may yield a by-product of value. At the outset the 
market pathologist has found himself forced to recog- 
nise almost a new type of dis@ase organism. Under 
field conditions this type has limited importance, but 
under market conditions the plant tissues are less 
resistant and these organisms show much greater 
virulence while attacking a wide range of plant 
species ; among such organisms are found the bacterial 
soft rots and Botrytis. 
The American pathologist has already reached the 
stage at which his first survey enables him to indicate 
to grower and salesman the most harmful types 
of disease, the characters by which they may be 
recognised by the non-expert eye, the conditions 
leading to the spread of these diseases and the most 
practicable methods for their control during transport 
and storage. It may be argued that in Great Britain, 
the small distance involved in transit renders the 
question of less importance. But short distances do 
not always mean rapid transit, and in any case, the 
most casual inspection of a fruit and vegetable market 
would show that American experience in this question 
may be of real value. 
Of general application also are such results of the 
preliminary American work as their experience with 
strawberries, where N. E. Stevens finds (Phytopatho- 
logy, 9, pp. 171-177) that strawberries picked early in 
the day, even if wet, keep better than those berries 
picked after the sun has been on them for some hours. 
Pomologists also will be quick to admit that we have 
still to learn the reasons for the different keeping 
qualities of the same variety of apple if gathered 
under different conditions. Under the stimulus of war 
conditions very great progress was made in Great 
Britain in the investigation of food storage conditions, 
and as a consequence some attention has been paid 
in recent scientific communications to the organ- 
ism found causing damage among stored produce. 
American experience, however, would seem to raise 
the more general question whether the phytopatho- _ 
logical experience of the investigator should not bere- __ 
orientated so as to embrace the whole history of 
the vegetable, from field to table. 
The Eruption of Sakura-jima in I914. 
ROF. OMORI has recently (Bull. Imp. Earthq. 
Inves. Com., vol. 8, pp. 467-525) published 
his sixth, and apparently last, memoir on the eruption 
of Sakura-jima of January 12, 1914, and following 
days—the greatest of all known eruptions in Japan, 
if greatness be measured by the amount of lava 
outflow and ash precipitation. The six memoirs 
fill a volume of 525 pages and are illustrated by 
107 plates. They constitute, according to the author, 
“a modest geometrical and seismological report on 
the great Sakura-jima eruption of 1914, and the 
course of the after-events followed for the next 
8 years.’ Prof. Omori’s readers will, I imagine, 
take a somewhat different view. They are more |; 
likely to regard the volume as the finest monograph, 
from a physical point of view, that has ever yet been 
written on a volcanic eruption. 
Summaries of previous memoirs have from time 
to time appeared in these columns.’ The first 
(September 1914) contains a general account of the 
eruption ‘and its accompanying phenomena. The 
second memoir (April 1916) deals with the sound 
* Vol. 94, p. 289; vol. 98, pp. 57-58; vol. 100, p. 35; vol. 106, pp. 165-166. 
NO. 2789, VOL. 11T] 

and ash-precipitation areas of the eruption, the 
accompanying changes of level and the earlier 
outbursts of the voleano. The third (December 1916) 
summarises the subsequent course of activity. After 
a pause of more than three years, the fourth memoir 
(March 1920) appeared containing the results of the — 
levelling surveys and the soundings in Kagoshima 
Bay made after the eruption. The fifth part (March — 
1920) is devoted to the seismographical observations 
of the fore-shocks and after-shocks, while the sixth — 
(November 1922) deals chiefly with the destructive 
earthquake of January 12, 1914. me, 
The interest of this earthquake lies in its occurrence _ 
during the eruption about 8} hours after it began. 
It was clearly a tectonic, and not a volcanic, earth- 
quake. Instead of being a sharp brief shock of small — 
disturbed area, the movement at Kagoshima was 
of considerable strength and duration; it was felt — 
for about 220 miles to the N.E. and S.S.W., and was 
strongly registered by European seismographs.? 
The epicentre was situated in the Kagoshima channel, — 
about 4 km. south-east of the observatory in that — 
2 NaTuRE, Vol. 92, 1914, P. 717+ & 
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