50 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVI. No. 1177 



fruit growing communities have in a large 

 way already adjusted themselves to sani- 

 tary methods of agriculture. At the risk 

 of appearing too pointed, I bring to you the 

 thought that it is time that cereal agricul- 

 ture be adjusted so that the cropping 

 methods known under the heading of till- 

 age, crop rotation and soil fertilization may 

 come into their own and prove their real 

 merits through the agriculturists, agrono- 

 mists and the cerealists getting together on 

 a program which shall properly take into 

 account the teachings of the soil biologists, 

 plant physiologists and pathologists for 

 the great cereal crops as has been done for 

 flower and vegetable farming, for potatoes, 

 fruit cropping and other types of intensive 

 crop culture. It is notorious that aside 

 from the applications of the principles of 

 seed disinfection for the prevention of 

 smut and a considerable work looking 

 toward the selection of disease-resistant va- 

 rieties very little in an organized way has 

 been done looking toward putting cereal 

 agriculture on a plane of sanitary cropping 

 comparable to the intensive methods used 

 with the crops mentioned. 



I think you will agree that the present 

 wheat bushelage can not on the average 

 year be greatly increased by just sowing 

 more acres on the same old areas in the 

 same old way or even in the same districts 

 unless a great change is introduced. How 

 wonderful has been the influence of plant 

 pathology on the grape industry, on the 

 fruit industry, on the apple crop and for 

 the potato crop. When we want to grow 

 these in the best way do we forget all prin- 

 ciples of soil sanitation or of disease intro- 

 duction and modes of distribution and in- 

 fection ? If the principles of sanitation as- 

 sociated with proper cropping methods in 

 these more confined crops have been of 

 benefit, what may they not do for the 

 cereal crops when properly applied and 



adjusted to the cropping conditions of each 

 great cereal district. 



Now that the governmental officials have 

 appealed to this country to raise the great- 

 est possible wheat crop, what have we done 

 to get it ? "We have only advocated the sow- 

 ing of the greatest number of acres in the 

 quickest possible time. Granted that we 

 were unprepared to do otherwise, shaU the 

 process be continued? Every conceivable 

 bushel of every conceivable kind of wheat, 

 mixed, diseased or otherwise, has gone into 

 the soil and into any area available. Noth- 

 ing more can be done now than to see that 

 the crop is properly harvested so as to save 

 the greatest possible bushelage in the best 

 possible condition to prevent its food value 

 from being injured, and particularly, that 

 it may not be spoiled as seed for the crop 

 of 1918-19. If such better harvesting is to 

 occur, it must take place in a sanitary 

 method. If it is to be done intelligently, 

 there must be a comprehensive plan; and 

 those who handle the crop after it is grown 

 should know that their handling processes 

 are as important as the cropping processes. 



Experiments in North Dakota with po- 

 tatoes, flax, wheat and allied cereals, ex- 

 tending over the period of time from 1890 

 to 1917, dealing always with the problems 

 of seed disinfection, soil purification and 

 cropping methods for the control of dis- 

 ease, allow me to say with assurance that 

 soil and seed infection has largely ac- 

 counted for the many anomalous results ob- 

 tained in various extensive experiments on 

 wheat and cereal cropping, particularly as 

 referring to variety tests, the influence of 

 rotation, methods of plowing, tillage, etc.; 

 for it is now known that through all these 

 experiments in all cereal states there has 

 been acting in greater or less virulence the 

 constant attack of seed- and soil-borne dis- 

 eases, which have not been properly taken 

 into account. This lack of the proper con- 

 sideration of sanitary measures as affecting 



