The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-09-23
COST OF PLANT DISEASES.
Represents an Annual Loss of Humid.
dreds of Millions of Dollars.

! uNpitStntS bUsS vi
dreds of Millions of Dollars.
Some astonishing igures on the
extent to which plant diseases are a
heavy tax on the country by causing
losses to the farmers are given in a
report by w. A. Orion, pathologist of
the Bureau of Plant Industry, in
charge of cotton and truck diseases,
says a Washington correspondent to
the Boston Transcript. Mr.. Orion dis
cusses the subject of development of
farm crops which will resist dis
ease and says one OF the most eff
fective methods of dealing with plant
diseases is to improve crops so that
they will be less subject TO injury. 1t
would take hundreds of millions of
dollars to cover the losses annually
caused by the diseases of plants and
the various troubles of farm crops.
according to Mr.. orion. lie says the
losses from the cereal rusts and
from lie numerous minor troubles of
farm crops, concerning which accu-
rate data are difficult to secure, am
cunt tO~hundreds of millions of dol
lars themselves He estimates the
loss from smut in oats at over &c.
100000; from smut in wheat, $14,-
100000; from barley smut, $2,000,000,
and he says the combined effects of
the several kinds of leaf blight in the
potato is to diminish the yield of
this crop over $36OO0,000 a year.
Vast as is the direct loss IRON plant
diseases, the indirect losses are also
great The expense of treating plant
diseases is very large.
OF still greater consequence is the
indirect loss resulting from the lin
( itation of industries. The risk from
disease frequently operates to re-
duce the production of an otherwise
valuable crop and indeed in many
cases industries have been abandoned
on this account. The history of the
grape industry in America affords
several illustrations of this. Accord
ing to Mr.. Orion there has been of
late marked increase in public ap-
probation of the Importance of i'm
proving crops so as to enable them
to ward off disease. New methods
have come into use and valuable re-
suits have already been secured. He
predicts that much more plant breed
ing will be done in the future. He
says the productiveness Of all crops
must be increased and their quality
improved. Yield and quality are
naturally the first considerations but
attention may probably lie paid in
every case to reducing injury from
disease. Mr.. Orion thinks it import
ant that fundamental study be made
of disease resistance. He says too
little information is available in the
whole field of breeding and the need
for investigation is great. Problems
of heredity and of pathology must be
studied.
The greater number of plant diseas-
es are due to parasitic plants, usual
ly fungi or bacteria, which live in or
on and at the expense of the crop
The study of the subject of para
sites is highly complicated one.
Climate 10 80
course, with disease resistance. One
OF the most interesting bases of the
problem relates to the inheritance of
disease resistance. The degree to
which disease resistance is inherited
is naturally a matter of fundamental
importance to the plant breeder
Everything indicates that disease re-
sistance is inherited by plants. The
Department of Agriculturue is going
steadily ahead in the work of over
coming and avoiding plant diseases.
A method of spraying trees has been
devised which effectively prevents
the bitter rot of apples This dis
Soot udo tduocu III Ont year q loss Oh
over 10,000,000 A simple and effec-
tive method Of preventing pesch-leaf
url has been discovered which al
eady saves hundreds of thousands of
dollars annually. The peach-twig
blight in California which has caus-
d great loss has been controlled. The
nature and method of control of a
disease known as the little peach"
which threatened to destroy the
peach industry of Michigan and west
ern New York have been discovered
A method of controlling the pear
blight, which has destroyed the best
varieties of pears in many parts of
the country, including s5,OO0,O00 of
orchards in California. has been dis
covered.
-