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FREDERICK H. BLODGETT 



same course in horticulture or forestry, rather than as a subject in 

 a separate department. Such close relations between courses 

 in the care and propagation of plants, and those in common dis- 

 eases and possible remedies becomes especially important when 

 there is no equipment in the department of botany in which this 

 relationship can be gained. In the absence of a botanical de- 

 partment the use of the department of horticulture as the agency 

 of teaching plant pathology is still more advisable, as it is quite 

 distinct from subjects included under "biology." • In those col- 

 leges in which the work in the two subjects is under the same 

 professor the practical working of this plan can be easily demon- 

 strated. 



A student, especially if immature in years, or in scholastic de- 

 velopment, needs to have the relation of the several topics of his 

 course as intimate as the subject matter allows. The tendency 

 to multiply names and subdivide subjects is an element of con- 

 fusion in teaching, however useful it may be in cataloging. 



In the catalogs examined there is a division of subjects between 

 the departments named which delegates to botany those topics (or 

 courses within a department) which are theoretical in character, 

 while those of a practical nature are offered by the department 

 of horticulture or forestry, but diseases of plants, as a course, is 

 usually offered as a botanical subject rather than as one mnder 

 horticulture. 



If one has a knowledge of fungi from taxomic work on them in 

 the botanical laboratory; a knowledge of the diseases commonly 

 met with in orchard or truck garden, gained in his horticultural 

 studies; some information as to occurrence and growth of bacteria 

 and molds, from the bacteriological laboratory, a special course in 

 plant diseases is largely duplicating work already done, and the 

 undergraduate student is apt to so regard it and derive a mini- 

 mum of benefit therefrom. After the courses just mentioned, his 

 time could be well used in the third senior term in the review of 

 the main facts in plant pathology, with the suggestion of work 

 on the spraying of plants for specific troubles. This could be 

 the concluding detail of work in the Horticultural Department. 



