The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1911-04-18

res from one to three times a week,
removing all diseased shoots, treat
ing the affected trees, and preventing
the infection of sound trees. In the
end he wiped out all the established
cases of blight and stopped several
new outbreaks of 1t. Out of over
twenty-six hundred affected trees, he
saved twenty.three hundred and not
one single case was left when the
season was over. The next season
that of 191O-opened without sim
| gle diseased tree. Later on, bit
of new infection was brought In, but
was promptly discovered and check
ed. The gain was so great that there
was no question of the large profits
from the experiment.
Another sprayer manufacturing com
pany in New York became sure that
the indiscriminateu use of Bordeaux mix
ture for apple scab was injurious and
that other kinds OF spray should be
tested. This company established a
fellowship, and Professor Whetzell at
once started a field laboratory among
the orchards, in different locality
each year, for the two years of 1909
and 1910. A promising young plant
| pathologlst conducted the laboratory
work, and at the summer meeting of
/ the State Fruit Growers association,
! in 1910, one thousand growers saw
for themselves the results of the ex-
iperiments on the trees in the or
chards around the town of Sodus
/ The president of the association, In
whose own orchards some of the work
was done, asserted that if the plant
| physician were retained as a local
practitioner he would save the neigh
boring growers fifty thousand dollars
in single year
AT present, in all farming and fruit
growing, there is a tremendous
amount of waste due to plant diseas.
es Men who raise stock cannot get
they all know that But men who
raise plants have never dreamed UNI
til lately OF surgery and physic for
crops. Modern agriculture demands
these, however quite as much as
modern stockraising demands the
veterinary doctors remedies. A new
field is therefore opening to trained
young men-and a very interesting
field it is, too.
The main object of the plant patho-
logist is to prevent plant disease.
Only in this way can the worst mala-
dies be checked, as once some dis
eases get hold, the crop is doomed or
decimated beyond hope. The eight
industrial fellowships already estab-
lished in New York represent a part.
nership between the state and its
growers for training and maintaining
a staff of pathological experts, and su.
pervising their field work The field
laboratory is to be tried in various
parts of the state, taking in not only
lorchard land, but gardens and fields
so that farmer, truck-grower and
fruit raiser may all see the problems
of their own localities studied and
solved as far as modern agricultural
science can do it.
New diseases and epidemics are
continually appearing among plants
The ordinary grower can never mas
ter the technique of plant pathology
any more than that of veterinary sur
gerry, and he may as we'll learn tc
Isummon a plant doctor when he
needs him for his services, since he
is sure to make a profit on the tran
saction The expert plant physician
is becoming a part of American agri
culture, and coming to stay. Probab
ly in ten or twenty years time every
countryside will wonder how 1t ever
got along without him, and the gold
en- crops and the laden boughs viii
rustic a welcome to him in the breeze
as he speeds along the roads on hi:
mission of aid.-Helen Ross Laird II
The Wellspring