Apkil 18, 19(J2.J 



SCIENCE. 



609 



sugar cane by bringing healthy cuttings 

 from the hills. Cobb pointed out a way 

 to avoid the gumming of sugar cane, a 

 serious disease in Australia, viz., by the 

 selection of healthy cuttings. This prac- 

 tice, he informs me, has greatly reduced 

 the amoimt of gummed cane in New South 

 Wales. Orton has recently found evidence 

 that the wilt of cotton and of eowpeas can 

 probably be prevented by the selection of 

 resistant individiials. Pierce and others 

 have shown that curled leaf of the peach 

 can be prevented by fungicidal sprays. 

 The saving from curl in one year on one 

 variety in one peach orchard in California 

 was $12,700 and the estimated saving to 

 the whole state was $400,000. Waite 

 blazed the Avay for a whole series of obser- 

 vations on self-sterility of orchard fruits 

 by demonstrating that a supposed pear dis- 

 ease infesting a great orchard in Virginia 

 was nothing else than sterility of the 

 flowers to their own pollen, and could be 

 overcome by planting in the orchard an 

 occasional pear tree of a different variety 

 blooming at the same time or by grafting 

 in such variety. Galloway and Dorsett 

 have shown that the leaf spot of violets 

 may be overcome by the selection ..of resis- 

 tant individuals. Jones has been remark- 

 ably successsful in protecting potatoes 

 from leaf blight by use of copper fungi- 

 cides. Nearly every experiment station 

 man has been able to chronicle some inter- 

 esting treatment or important discovery. 



If we consider the sentiment of the 

 community at large respecting this kind 

 of scientific work, the change has been 

 equally great. From being merely ' bug 

 hunters ' and ' queer fellows,' the ento- 

 mologist and mycologist have become 

 people of importance. Farmers, fruit 

 growers, gardeners and hothouse men are 

 no longer skeptical or indifferent, but are 

 eager to get the last word and quick to 

 apply each new discovery. A recognition 



of the importance of plant pathology is 

 also gradually extending to State legisla- 

 tures and national bodies of legislation, 

 and the time is not far off when appropria- 

 tions for the study of plant diseases will 

 be as prompt and liberal, in this country 

 at least, as they are now for any line of 

 work which is fully recognized by the men 

 who legislate as important for the geneial 

 welfare of the country and beyond the 

 possibilities of private inquiry. Diseases 

 which annually deplete the large civilized 

 countries of hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars, e. g., cotton blights, grain rusts, potato 

 rots, and which not infrequently assume 

 an epidemic form and sweep out entire 

 industries, e. g., coffee disease of Ceylon, 

 sugar-cane disease of Java, peach yellows 

 of the United States, Anaheim vine dis- 

 ease, are certainly legitimate objects of 

 goveimmental inquiry. I need not argue 

 this point. 



Some words, finally, as to the future. 

 The prophet is always at the mercy of 

 events. Nevertheless I shall venture a few 

 predictions. First of all, we may predict 

 for plant pathology in the United States 

 during the next fifty years a wonderful de- 

 velopment, since it appeals very strongly 

 to the genius of our people. This being 

 taken for granted, how shall that develop- 

 ment be best facilitated? The facts which 

 lie on the surface of things, as regards both 

 the causes of disease and the treatment of 

 the same, have now been pretty well picked 

 up. In my judgment, the treatment of dis- 

 eases by spraying with copper fungicides 

 has reached its climax and is now on the 

 wane. We shall have to devise other 

 methods for dealing with many plant dis- 

 eases. Plant breeding is one of the most 

 hopeful. It is a slow process, and the man 

 in the field will sometimes become impatient 

 unless he is a philosopher as well as a 

 farmer. Field hygiene is also a matter of 

 prime importance. Suitable rotation of 



