78 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



£200 is not unusual in the crop of a single house in cases where 

 the disease has been exceptionally severe. Adopting the pre- 

 ventive method, the cost of spraying and promptly removing 

 suspicious plants from a large tomato-house would not cost 

 more than £2, probably not nearly so much. Unfortunately the 

 too general conservative spirit of our gardeners rebels against 

 the idna of anticipation, and argues that it is absurd to expend 

 money in combating a disease which does not in reality exist. 



This indifference on the part of gardeners is fully explained 

 by the still greater indifference displayed by the majority of 

 those who profess to educate gardeners in all the branches 

 appertaining to their profession ; and in this respect it is, to say 

 the least, a regrettable fact that our country is unique in not 

 including in the programme of essentials, a broad knowledge of 

 the life-history of those groups of fungi which are admittedly one 

 of the pests of horticulture. 



It is sometimes urged that practical gardeners have neither 

 the time nor the inclination to become specialists in the study 

 of fungi ; an argument which is as unnecessary as unreasonable. 

 What gardeners should know is, the broad outlines of the 

 peculiar mode of life of injurious fungi, which differs so much 

 from that of the plants with which they are most familiar. 

 Armed with this amount of knowledge, the cultivator of plants 

 would be able to anticipate the attacks of his foes, would be 

 enabled to carry into practice the suggestions made by specialists 

 on the subject of plant diseases ; and, finally, would be able to 

 convey in an intelligible form the symptoms of disease when 

 asking for advice. 



At present this, unfortunately, is not the rule ; diseased plants 

 are submitted wholesale, usually accompanied by the statement 

 that the plants were quite healthy until a fungus showed itself 

 on some particular part of the plant. The inevitable reply to 

 such, that it is too late to effect a cure, and all that can be done 

 is to prevent the spread of the disease, is naturally disheartening, 

 and calculated to foster distrust as to the possibility of preventing 

 disease, This unfortunate condition of things will be under- 

 stood if it is remembered that when mushroom spawn is placed 

 in a mushroom-bod, some considerable time is required for the 

 Bpawil or mycelium to grow and spread, before mushrooms 

 appear. The mycelium or spawn is in function the exact 



