TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION K. 485 



Btarve pure research, but our aim should be to find a useful career for an 

 increasing number of well-trained botanists and to ensure that our country and 

 Empire shall make the best use of the results of our research. Incidentally 

 there will be an increased demand for the teaching botanist, for he will be 

 responsible for laying the foundations. 



Complaint has been made in the past that there were not enough openings 

 for the trained botanist; but if the responsibilities and opportunities of the 

 science are realised we may say, rather, ' Truly the harvest is plentiful, but 

 the labourers are few.' Botany is the alma mater of the applied sciences, 

 agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and others; but the alma mater who is to 

 receive the due affection and respect of her offspring must realise and live up 

 to her responsibilities. 



The following Discussions then took place :^ 



1. On Economic Mycologtj and the Necessity for Further Provision for 

 Pathological Research. 



(a) Introductory Statement by Professor M. C. Totter, Sc.D. 



The real importance of this branch of botany to the nation and the vital 

 necessity of a study of the causes contributing to the enormous food-wastage 

 throughout the Empire need to be strongly emphasised. 



A very large proportion of the world's commercial products are of vegetable 

 origin, and all the plants providing such products are subject to the attacks of 

 fungoid or bacterial parasites, the loss resulting from diseases of this nature 

 being of enormous extent. It has been estimated that on the average about 

 one-third of the various crops are destroyed. The loss to the German Empire 

 on the cereal crop in one year was over twenty millions sterling, and Australia 

 suffered to the extent of two and a-half millions through ' rust ' of wheat 

 alone. In England about one million tons of potatoes are lost by disease per 

 annum, and in Northumberland and Durham alone about 250,000 tons of turnips 

 and swedes, valued at 125,000/. The destruction of timber everywhere is most 

 serious, and all Colonial crops such as sugar, rubber, coffee, &c., together with 

 every kind of fruit, pay a heavy toll to the attacks of plant parasites. 



It is rather remarkable that so little interest is shown in the study of 

 economic mycology. Hitherto little encouragement has been given to the prose- 

 cution of research in phytipathology, and inoblems of imjwrtance equal to any 

 in any branch of science aivait solution in this section of botany. 



Our ordinary botanical courses should include a -wider treatment of the 

 fungi; and, while appreciating to the full the valuable results of cytological 

 work, one maj^ claim at the same time that it might reasonably be supplemented 

 by study of the life-histories of the fungi from the point of view of their work 

 in Nature. More students might thus be led to take up research upon economic 

 lines who would be equipped with a broad scientific training founded upon 

 sound principles of physiology, bio-chemistry, and biophysics. There is great 

 danger in a narrowly technical education, and it is to be feared that at present 

 there is not a sufHcient supply of suitably qualified men to undertake the 

 investigation of problems in the etiology of disease. 



The problems are extremely complicated, and large questions are involved 

 which demand the application of fundamental principles of physiology and plant 

 hygiene. The relation of host to parasite, the reaction of both to internal and 

 external conditions open up a wide field of research. The therapeutics of the 

 plant must be considered from the same point of view as animal therapeutics ; 

 and conditions of environment, predisposition, and questions affecting infection 

 and immunity, must all form the subject of definite scientific investigation. 



A close study of the life-history of a fungus often reveals some weak spot 

 where it is specially vulnerable, and a knowledge of methods of natural 

 infection and of conditions favouring the spread of the disease will often lead 

 to an effective means of prevention. 



The fundamental question of food-constituents and the associated theories of 



