/> 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 smut 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.




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.






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.






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.