92 TEANSACTIONS OP THE ILLINOIS 



H. E. Van Dernan — It is a promising rival of Concord, but 

 dealers name it Concord to sell it. 



Prof. T. J. Burrill — It has been claimed for the Vergennes 

 that it bags itself — i. e. its thick skin will withstand fungi and rot. 



John Walter, Princeton — I have made observations, from 

 Chicago to Cobden, to ascertain, if possible, the cause and preventa- 

 tive of grape-rot. A board shelter has been found a perfect protec- 

 tion, vines trained under the projecting eaves of a roof, anything 

 that protects from dew, keeps them from rot. 



J. Webster — "The old grapevine on the wall" is ever a suc- 

 cess, and it is not possible for us to get a hint from these long 

 rumbling, partly protected vines that we may profit by. 



UNSOLVED PKOBLEMS IX HORTICULTURAL ENTOMOLOGY. 



BY PKOF. S. A. FORBES, CHAMPAIGN. 



I suppose that most of you are disposed to admit that the horti- 

 culturist is dependent, in some measure, upon the economic entomol- 

 ogist for a knowledge of the insect enemies of his products ; that 

 there are some indispensible points of knowledge relating to the life 

 histories, habits and treatment of the horticultural insect pests which 

 the ordinary observer cannot well make out for himself, accurate 

 and discreet as he often is, but without leisure for continuous inves- 

 tigation, without a knowledge of the literature of entomology, with- 

 out the apparatus for experiment, and without a practical acquaint- 

 ance with the modern methods of observation and research required 

 to unlock some of the more difficult secrets of insect life. 



I wish also to admit, on behalf of the economic entomologist, that 

 we are likewise dependent in very many ways upon a scientific horti- 

 culture for the success of our studies, and that when we are not 

 strictly so dependent, our labors might often be greatly expedited 

 and greatly increased in fruitf ulness if we were permitted to draw 

 freely on the stores of knowledge of the facts of nature which 

 every observant and intelligent horticulturist must lay up. Every 

 one who kuows horticulture knows that it is a scientific pursuit, and 

 that the successful horticulturist acquires a very definite scientific 

 training of eye and hand and brain. What a mass of the most val- 

 uable material the greatest naturalist of modern times drew from his 

 correspondence with the gardeners and fruit-growers, and collected 

 from the agricultural and horticultural press, every one knows who 

 has read Darwin's ''Variation of Animals and Plants under Do- 

 mestication." 



