UPON PARASITIC FUXGI 383 



It may be assumed that the weather of one season affects the 

 vegetation of the next, and it should be borne in mind that the 

 summer of 1897 was a very wet one. In the six months of the 

 growing season, namely : April, May, June, July, August and Sep- 

 tember, all except September had a rainfall above the average. In 

 short, in place of the 25.01 inches for the normal there were 30.31 

 inches, more than a third (i 1.42 inches) of which fell in July. This 

 IS the heaviest rainfall for any month during the ten years that the 

 writer has been connected with the New Jersey Experiment Station. 

 The season that was most nearly like that of last year is that of 

 1889, in which five out of the six months of the growing season 

 were above the normal in rainfall and the total was 36.87 inches. 

 It w^as during this season that the precipitation for July was 10.19 

 inches, giving the month the second rank for rainfall for the past 



nme years. 



As 1889 and 1897 were the two w^et years of the last ten, and 

 agree in having the heaviest precipitation during July, it will be to 

 our purpose to note here some observations upon fungi recorded 

 for those two years and return later to any consideration of the 

 relation of the weather of one season to the mycological develop- 

 ments in the next. 



In 1889 the writer spent a large fraction of his time in the 

 study of crops by personal visitation throughout the state. It be- 

 ing his first year at the Experiment Station, there was no means 

 of making any comparisons, but the mid-sunuiicr was characterized 

 by the extensive development of parasitic fungi of various species. 

 There was. for example, a phenomenal outbreak of the potato rot 

 and both PJiyiophtJiora infcsta)is De By. and the bacterial disease, 

 w^orking alone or together, carried off the main portion of the crop. 

 Large growers throughout whole sections of the country did not 

 harvest their potatoes, while others dug and placed them in heaps 



where they rotted. 



The mildew of the lima bean, PJiytoplitJiora pJiascoli Thax., was 

 described by Dr. Thaxter in 1889 and figured in the Annual Re- 

 port of the Connecticut Experiment Station for that year, where it 

 is stated that it was first observed in September and in some cases 

 the bean crop was greatly injured. Particular stress is laid upon 

 the year of discovery, and its abundance because in the hree 



