Arizona republican., 1912-06-10

same year the peach crop Was sirick- Cn and the farmers lost $,335.0oO. A blight swept over the potato fields in New York in 1904 causing q loss of $1o.00O,0oO. This disease does $36- 000. 900 damage in the United States annually. while wheat hunt involves
 au annual loss of $ll.000.O00 and oat smut damages that cereal to the eN- : tent of $6.50, ,00o a year
 ! In some respects d few plant di- iscascs have points of similarity with human ills. The sugar beet, for in
 stance. suffers from sort of malaria 1 the germ of which is injected into i it by the bite of m insect As yet | the government patholoeistS have been unable to find this germ. A round. fngoid spot on the leaves of
 the beet is the sign of another di lsease which causes the leaves to curl lup and die and greatly diminishes the precious sugar in the beet itself. While these diseases have not i spread sufficiently to exercise my ! serious injury to the crop, they and twenty others which afflict the sugar beet in minor degrees are being par tic larly studied by the plant doctors. The reason for this Solicitude is that the sugar beet is no ordinary Vege- table Not onlN is its saccharine con tent productive of sugar worth xt0.- o00 00o in the United States each year. but the beet is d wonderful soil conserver. and in rotation with other crops has become the foundation of modern scientific agriculture in Flu rope. where the farmer is encouraged to cultivate it by special hounties and protection in the form of high sugar tariffs Agricultural scientists believe that if American farmers are encouraged by the maintenance of the tariff duty to spread the culture of , sugar beets, the general productiv es. of our fields will be really increased during the next few years. Already the government has established a spe- ciaI sugar beet hospital at Rocky Ford. Colorado, where diseased indi-
 viduals of this species are subject to study Enough has been learned already to make it certain that these diseases can be overcome and this important crop be enabled to expand it's work of improving the yield of American acres in all our important crops. work for which it is now re- garded as the most important single agent available
 Another reason why particular at
 tention is being given to the task of renering the sugar beet immune to the attacks of disease is that while 1 the culture of this crop has expanded very rapidly within the past ten years l its cultivation is still comparatively ] a new industry in the United States, and only a small proportion of the
 area adapted to it's growth is now de voted to it. investigations by experts of the department of agriculture show i that practically every state of the union except those of the extreme 1 southeastern group is capable of i growing sugar beets and Secretary 1 Wilson is authority for the statement 1 that if only one acre in every l97 of the area adapted to this crop were planted to it, the United States would
 ht producing all the sugar required fo" it's own consumption. With the possi- i bility of saving for our own people 1 the $100. 100000 now expended for forein grown sugar and at the same time increasing the yield of all our other staple crops from 25 to 90 per cent. as has been accomplished in
 sections where beet growing is al ready established. it will be seen
 that this industry is one deserving of all possible protection and encourage ment
 one curious plant epidemic the chestnut bark disease. is now sweep in the eastern part of the country and threatens to eliminate this spe- cies of trees completely from Ameri- can forests The disease started in New York city in 1904, supposedly having arrived from Japan, and al ready it has been noticed as far south as Vierinia It has done $100,00O,OO0 damage thus far and the chestnut lS already d thing of the past within q
 radius of fifty or more miles about the metropolis All that remain ct
 the trees are naked trunks.
 The chestnut disease is caused by
 minute fungus. The first symptom iS q yellow, range or reddish brown
 rash. spreading yer the bark. The
 minute spots are the pustules of the
 fruiting fungus. These spots cause d
 spreading sore" or lesion which soon
 girdles the tree. The bark flakes off,
 the leaves wither. and only the dead
 naked trunk remains. The only
 method of controlling the spread of
 this disease is by segregation-des-
 troying trees throughout the terri
 tory involved and creating an i'm
 mense area by destroying all chest
 nuts, diseased or healthy, within a
 belt of ten or twenty miles wide sur
 rounding the main zone of infection
 The national government is prohibited
 from this radical course of treatment
 because it cannot destroy property | hut upder it's advice some of the