212 Agkioultural Expekement Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



regardless of their being wet so that opportunities for pollination were 

 good. 



The test is of interest as showing that there need be no fear of inter- 

 fering with pollination by spraying for insects or diseases, even if 

 necessary to do it at blossoming time. Of course, it should not be done 

 at that time, ordinarily, on account of our friends, the bees. 



Diseases. — Frequent inquiries are received at the Station in regard 

 to treatment of the fungous diseases which prove such serious enemies 

 to berries, and it is greatly to be regretted that so little information 

 can be given concerning them. Of some of them we are ignorant even 

 of the cause, much lees of any method of prevention . There is enough 

 work to be done in studying the diseases of this group of plants alone, 

 to occupy the exclusive attention of any expert mycologist. The three 

 serious diseases which I have met the most frequently are the familiar 

 red-rust of the leaves and twigs, the anthracnose or pitting of the 

 canes, and an apparently undescribed root-gall. 



The red-rust ( Cceoma ?iitens) is one of the diseases which proves 

 very disastrous to black raspberries and blackberries in many sections. 

 Fortunately, this is comparatively well understood and concerted ener- 

 getic treatment on the part of groAvers will eradicate it . Studies made 

 under the direction of the Department of Agriculture have shown that 

 it possesses a perennial mycelium which lives over winter in the plant, 

 and develops with the young canes the following spring. The truth of 

 this statement was verified here in a very simple w^ay. In the summer 

 of 1892 a single blackberry bush was found in our plantation aifected 

 with this disease. On June 23, all the canes of this plant were cut off 

 close to the ground. New ones immediately sprung up which to the 

 eye appeared perfectly healthy. The following spring, however, at the 

 usual season, the leaves and twigs were covered with the well known 

 orange-red color, showing that the fungus had been continuing its 

 growth all along within the tissues of the plant, ready to develop its 

 spores at the proper time. With this one fact in the life histor3'^ of the 

 fungus in mind, it is easy to say that a plant once attacked is doomed, 

 and that no amount of treatment can ever eradicate the disease from 

 its tissues. Spraying may prevent the germination of some of the 

 spores which it scatters abroad, but that is all, and it is far more effec- 

 tive and cheaper to begin at the source and prevent their production in 

 the first place, by rooting out and burning every diseased plant the 

 moment it is discovered. It may ^Iso be necessary to look after the 

 wild raspberry, blackberry and dewberry plants in the vicinity, for if 

 they^are numerous and badly affected the disease may s])read from 

 them faster than from any other source. 



