HISTORICAL 5 



Farlow in 1875, and other publications by Bessey, con- 

 tributed to the knowledge of plant disease and served 

 especially to awaken interest in the problems and to attract 

 students to this field of research. 



In 1879 Burrill, working upon the blight of the pear and 

 apple, was the first to attribute a plant disease to bacterial 

 origin. His work was confirmed and his conclusions more 

 fully established by Arthur. 



During the seventies from two or three workers in this 

 field the number rapidly grew, augmented especially by 

 the introduction of plant pathology into the Agricultural 

 E.xperiment Stations and the United States Department 

 of Agriculture in the middle eighties, until the number of 

 papers published in the United States upon plant pathology 

 between 1888 and 1900 is estimated at over four thousand. 

 While only a few dozen American plant diseases had been 

 even cursorily described prior to 1880, to-day a total of 

 some 525 diseases, more than 250 of them serious, have 

 been carefully investigated. 



Historical concerning plant disease prevention. — 

 Though Uttle could be done to devise rational methods 

 of combating plant diseases until their causes were 

 known, a very few rule-of-thumb, empirical ways of meet- 

 ing them had been suggested in very early days. As 

 might be expected many of the methods used were value- 

 less. Thus Parkinson early in the seventeenth century 

 advocated the use of vinegar to prevent canker on trees, 

 and Forsyth in 1790 gave the follo^ving directions for mak- 

 ing a mixture to " cure disease, defects, and injuries of 

 plants." ' " Take one bushel fresh cow dung, one half 



1 iKjdeman, E. G., "The Spraying of Plants," p. 6. 



