Agriculture for Beginners Part 13

THE DISEASES OF PLANTS

SECTION XXVII. THE CAUSE AND NATURE OF PLANT DISEASE

Plants have diseases just as animals do; not the same diseases, to be sure, but just as serious for the plant. Some of them are so dangerous that they kill the plant; others partly or wholly destroy its usefulness or its beauty. Some diseases are found oftenest on very young plants, others prey on the middle-aged tree, while still others attack merely the fruit. Whenever a farmer or fruit-grower has disease on his plants, he is sure to lose much profit.

You have all seen rotten fruit. This is diseased fruit. Fruit rot is a plant disease. It costs farmers millions of dollars annually. A fruit-grower recently lost sixty carloads of peaches in a single year through rot which could have been largely prevented if he had known how.

Many of the yellowish or discolored spots on leaves are the result of disease, as is also the s.m.u.t of wheat, corn, and oats, the blight of the pear, and the wilt of cotton. Many of these diseases are contagious, or, as we often hear said of measles, "catching." This is true, among others, of the apple and peach rots. A healthy apple can catch this disease from a sick apple. You often see evidence of this in the apple bin. So, too, many of the diseases found in the field or garden are contagious.

Sometimes when the skin of a rotten apple has been broken you will find in the broken place a blue mold. It was this that caused the apple to decay. This mold is a living plant; very small, certainly, but nevertheless a plant. Let us learn a little about molds, in order that we may better understand our apple and potato rots, as well as other plant diseases.

If you cut a lemon and let it stand for a day or two, there will probably appear a blue mold like that you have seen on the surface of canned fruit. Bread also sometimes has this blue mold; at other times bread has a black mold, and yet again a pink or a yellow mold.

These and all other molds are tiny living plants. Instead of seeds they produce many very small bodies that serve the purpose of seeds and reproduce the mold. These are called _spores_. Fig. 112 shows how they are borne on the parent plant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 112. TANGLED THREADS OF BLUE MOLD The single stalk on the left shows how spores are borne]

It is also of great importance to decide whether by keeping the spores away we may prevent mold. Possibly this experiment will help us. Moisten a piece of bread, then dip a match or a pin into the blue mold on a lemon, and draw the match across the moist bread. You will thus plant the spores in a row, though they are so small that perhaps you may not see any of them. Place the bread in a damp place for a few days and watch it. Does the mold grow where you planted it? Does it grow elsewhere? This experiment should prove to you that molds are living things and can be planted. If you find spots elsewhere, you must bear in mind that these spores are very small and light and that some of them were probably blown about when you made your sowing. When you touch the moldy portion of a dry lemon, you see a cloud of dust rise. This dust is made of millions of spores.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 113. MAGNIFIED ROSE MILDEW]

If you plant many other kinds of mold you will find that the molds come true to the kind that is planted; that like produces like even among molds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 114. A MILDEWED ROSE]

You can prove, also, that the mold is caused only by other mold. To do this, put some wet bread in a wide-mouthed bottle and plug the mouth of the bottle with cotton. Kill all the spores that may be in this bottle by steaming it an hour in a cooking-steamer. This bread will not mold until you allow live mold from the outside to enter. If, however, at any time you open the bottle and allow spores to enter, or if you plant spores therein, and if there be moisture enough, mold will immediately set in.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 115. A HIGHLY MAGNIFIED SECTION OF DISEASED PEAR LEAF Showing how spores are borne]

The little plants which make up these molds are called _fungi_. Some fungi, such as the toadstools, puffb.a.l.l.s, and devil's snuff-box, are quite large; others, namely the molds, are very small; and others are even smaller than the molds. Fungi never have the green color of ordinary plants, always reproduce by spores, and feed on living matter or matter that was once alive. Puffb.a.l.l.s, for example, are found on rotting wood or dead twigs or roots. Some fungi grow on living plants, and these produce plant disease by taking their nourishment from the plant on which they grow; the latter plant is called the _host_.

The same blue mold that grows on bread often attacks apples that have been slightly bruised; it cannot pierce healthy apple skin. You can plant the mold in the bruised apple just as you did on bread and watch its rapid spread through the apple. You learn from this the need of preventing bruised or decayed apples from coming in contact with healthy fruit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 116. SPORES OF THE PEAR SCAB The spores are borne on stalks]

Just as the fungus studied above lives in the apple or bread, so other varieties live on leaves, bark, etc. Fig. 113 represents the surface of a mildewed rose leaf greatly magnified. This mildew is a fungus. You can see its creeping stems, its upright stalk, and numerous spores ready to fall off and spread the disease with the first breath of wind. You must remember that this figure is greatly magnified, and that the whole portion shown in the figure is only about one tenth of an inch across.

Fig. 114 shows the general appearance of a twig affected by this disease.

Mildew on the rose or on any other plant may be killed by spraying the leaves with a solution of liver of sulphur; to make this solution, use one ounce of the liver of sulphur to two gallons of water.

The fungus that causes the pear-leaf spots has its spores in little pits (Fig. 115). The spores of some fungi also grow on stalks, as shown in Fig. 116. This figure represents an enlarged view of the pear scab, which causes so much destruction.

You see, then, that fungi are living plants that grow at the expense of other plants and cause disease. Now if you can cover the leaf with a poison that will kill the spore when it comes, you can prevent the disease. One such poison is the Bordeaux (_bor-do_') mixture, which has proved of great value to farmers.

Since the fungus in most cases lives within the leaves, the poison on the outside does no good after the fungus is established. The treatment can be used only to _prevent_ attack, not to cure, except in the case of a few mildews that live on the outside of the leaf, as does the rose mildew.

=EXERCISE=

Why do things mold more readily in damp places? Do you now understand why fruit is heated before it is canned? Try to grow several kinds of mold. Do you know any fungi which may be eaten?

Transfer disease from a rotten apple to a healthy one and note the rapidity of decay. How many really healthy leaves can you find on a strawberry plant? Do you find any spots with reddish borders and white centers? Do you know that this is a serious disease of the strawberry? What damage does fruit mold do to peaches, plums, or strawberries?

Write to your experiment station for bulletins on plant diseases and methods for making and using spraying mixtures.

SECTION XXVIII. YEAST AND BACTERIA

Can you imagine a plant so small that it would take one hundred plants lying side by side to equal the thickness of a sheet of writing-paper?

There are plants that are so small. Moreover, these same plants are of the utmost importance to man. Some of them do him great injury, while others aid him very much.

You will see their importance when you are told that certain of them in their habits of life cause great change in the substances in which they live. For example, when living in a sugary substance they change the sugar into a gas and an alcohol. Do you remember the bright bubbles of gas you have seen rising in sweet cider or in wine as it soured? These bubbles are caused by one of these small plants--the yeast plant. As the yeast plant grows in the sweet fruit juice, alcohol is made and a gas is given off at the same time, and this gas makes the bubbles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 117. YEAST PLANTS _A_, a single plant; _B_, group of two budding cells; _C_, group of several cells]

Later, other kinds of plants equally small will grow and change the alcohol into an acid which you will recognize as vinegar by its sour taste and peculiar odor. Thus vinegar is made by the action of two different kinds of little living plants in the cider. That these are living beings you can prove by heating the cider and keeping it tightly sealed so that nothing can enter it. You will find that because the living germs have been killed by the heat, the cider will not ferment or sour as it did before. The germs could of course be killed by poisons, but then the cider would be unfit for use. It is this same little yeast plant that causes bread to rise.

When you see any decaying matter you may know that in it minute plants much like the yeast plant are at work. Since decay is due to them, we take advantage of the fact that they cannot grow in strong brine or smoke; and we prepare meat for keeping by salting it or by smoking it or by both of these methods.

You see that some of the yeast plants and _bacteria_, as many of these forms are called, are very friendly to us, while others do us great harm.

Some bacteria grow within the bodies of men and other animals or in plants. When they do so they may produce disease. Typhoid fever, diphtheria, consumption, and many other serious diseases are caused by bacteria. Fig. 118, _e_, shows the bacterium that causes typhoid fever.

In the picture, of course, it is very greatly magnified. In reality these bacteria are so small that about twenty-five thousand of them side by side would extend only one inch. These small beings produce their great effects by very rapid multiplication and by giving off powerful poisons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 118. FORMS OF BACTERIA _a_, grippe; _b_, bubonic plague; _c_, diphtheria; _d_, tuberculosis; _e_, typhoid fever]

Bacteria are so small that they are readily borne on the dust particles of the air and are often taken into the body through the breath and also through water or milk. You can therefore see how careful you should be to prevent germs from getting into the air or into water or milk when there is disease about your home. You should heed carefully all instructions of your physician on this point, so that you may not spread disease.

SECTION XXIX. PREVENTION OF PLANT DISEASE

In the last two sections you have learned something of the nature of those fungi and bacteria that cause disease in animals and plants. Now let us see how we can use this knowledge to lessen the diseases of our crops. Farmers lose through plant diseases much that could be saved by proper precaution.

First, you must remember that every diseased fruit, twig, or leaf bears millions of spores. These must be destroyed by burning. They must not be allowed to lie about and spread the disease in the spring. See that decayed fruit in the bin or on the trees is destroyed in the same manner. Never throw decayed fruit into the garden or orchard, as it may cause disease the following year.

Second, you can often kill spores on seeds before they are planted and thus prevent the development of the fungus (see pp. 134-137).

Third, often the foliage of the plant can be sprayed with a poison that will prevent the germination of the spores (see pp. 138-140).

Fourth, some varieties of plants resist disease much more stoutly than others. We may often select the resistant form to great advantage (see Fig. 119).

Fifth, after big limbs are pruned off, decay often sets in at the wound.

This decay may be prevented by coating the cut surface with paint, tar, or some other substance that will not allow spores to enter the wound or to germinate there.

Sixth, it frequently happens that the spore or fungus remains in the soil. This is true in the cotton wilt, and the remedy is so to rotate crops that the diseased land is not used again for this crop until the spores or fungi have died.