PREFACE. THE following notes on the Diseases of Field and Garden Crops are reports of a series of addresses given at the request of the officers of the Institute of Agriculture at the British Museum, South Kensington. The addresses were preceded by a course of twenty lectures upon Vegetable Physiology in relation to Farm Crops, by Professor G. T. Bettany, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S.; so that it was unnecessary, in speaking of plant diseases, to revert in detail to the structural and physiological branches, which had been covered by Professor Bettany. The nature, limits, and objects of the addresses will be seen in the introductory remarks. In the lecture room actual examples of all the diseases in different stages of growth were exhibited, and the subjects were illustrated with camera-lucida drawings, as well as larger coloured drawings made from living examples. In the lecture room the simpler subjects were taken first, the students being gradually led on to the more involved ones. This arrangement has been adhered to in the present work, where the addresses have been put into book form, and numerous additions made. The engravings are either reductions from the large drawings used at the lectures, or from others made from nature since. They are all (with the exception of one or two which it was necessary should be copies) original, and from living examples. We hope the illustrations will be useful; we believe they are correct; they show what we have seen, or think we have seen. Excellent preparations for the microscope of the fungi mentioned in these pages may be purchased, at moderate prices, from the Rev. J. E. Vize, M.A., Forden, Welshpool. Our thanks are due for assistance to our friends Mr. Chas. B. Plowright, M.R.C.S., King's Lynn ; and to Mr. A. Stephen Wilson of North Kinmundy, Summerhill, Aberdeen. Most of the original camera-lucida drawings, with many of the actual examples, and a large series of microscopic preparations used at the lectures and for this work, are now in the department of Botany, British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington. W. G. S. LINDEN HOUSE, DUNSTABLE, BEDS, |