March 22, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



2S] 



bidden to increase their acreage, and have 

 done this, so far as they were able. But 

 it is clear that if the food supply is to be 

 increased it must be accomplished largely 

 by increasing the yield per acre, rather 

 than by increasing the acreage ; and the 

 botanists of America must largely assume 

 this responsibility. The adaptation of crops 

 to soils and to climate, proper crop rotation 

 and general improvement of cultural 

 methods, the development and introduc- 

 tion of better seed and of improved va- 

 rieties, the checking of ravages of plant 

 diseases — these and manj' others are botan- 

 ical problems in the solution of which 

 botanists of every tjT)e must have a share. 



The second demand on the people this 

 year in connection with the food supply is 

 — save food, prevent waste. We find here 

 the problems of the pantry and the kitchen, 

 of storage and transportation, of the pres- 

 ervation of perishable crops and foods — 

 problems many of which are botanical or 

 have botanical aspects. 



There are no richer fields of scientific re- 

 search to-day than the varied economic 

 problems now presented to the botanists of 

 America, and none fraught with greater 

 possibilities of honor to the worker and of 

 benefit to the nation, and to no class of 

 botanists is the call stronger or the duty 

 greater than to the plant pathologist. By 

 preventing the ravages of diseases on grow- 

 ing crops he increases food production, 

 and by checking the development of the or- 

 ganisms of decay on food material in tran- 

 sit and in storage he prevents food wastage. 

 "We are now saving food to feed our allies 

 by instituting wheatlcss days and meatless 

 days, and days and meals less this and that. 

 Under present conditions this procedure is 

 necessary and the curbing of our appetites 

 has its hygienic value. But how much more 

 pleasant it is to save food by curbing plant 

 diseases, which can and should be done 



much more extensively than is now the case. 



I shall not attempt to demonstrate the 

 importance of the work before pathologists 

 by citing figures giving estimates of losses 

 due to plant diseases. I will only remind you 

 that there is no economic plant which has 

 not its fungous enemies, each of which takes 

 its toll of the growing crop, while many 

 plants count these enemies by the dozen or 

 the score, so that the total aggregate loss is 

 staggering. But the consumer does not ap- 

 preciate this fact, and even the grower 

 himself is indifferent. Both are so accus- 

 tomed to a certain amount of loss from dis- 

 ease and storage rot that they accept it as a 

 matter of course, not realizing that much of 

 the loss is easily preventable. Since the 

 symptoms of disease in plants are ordinarily 

 much less striking than those of disease in 

 animals, or even than the ravages of the 

 crops by insects, the average farmer may 

 not recognize the presence of disease in his 

 grain field until the loss amounts to 15 or 

 20 per cent. ; less than that is overlooked or 

 charged to the weather. It may require the 

 loss of a third to half his crop to arouse him 

 to action and to the adoption of proper 

 control measures. 



So we see that the plant pathologist has 

 a double duty to perfoi'm. He must first 

 devise means for controlling plant diseases ; 

 he must then carry these control measures 

 to the farmers and arouse sufficient public 

 interest to secure their regular and effec- 

 tive adoption. The second of these func- 

 tions is no less important than the first, 

 and frequently is much more difficult of ac- 

 complishment. The scientific aspects of the 

 problem may be solved when the patholo- 

 gists have devised effective means of con- 

 trol, but the economic aspects are not solved 

 until the disease in question is conquered 

 and the losses reduced to a negligible 

 amount by the general adoption of control 

 measures by the growers. 



