APPENDIX. 419 



Tubeuf and Smith briefly refer to it as common in Britain and the United 

 States.* 



In this country Von Thumen's statement has been abundantly verified. 

 Smith states that this fungus is more common and far more destructive than 

 any other observed on the peach. He estimates that in 1888 fully eight 

 hundred thousand baskets of peaches were destroyed on the Delaware- 

 Chesapeake Peninsula, and that in 1889 the crop was fully five hundred 

 thousand baskets short on account of the blighting- of the blossoms by 

 Monilia. In Georgia and the far south the loss is sometimes as much as 

 two-thirds of the whole crop. Taft states that in Michigan some seasons a 

 large part of the crop of peaches, cherries and plums is destroj'ed. Garman 

 has reported serious rotting of apples in Kentucky as due to Monilia. and 

 many other instances of destructive attacks could be mentioned. 



In this state the disease has attracted attention chiefly on account of the 

 excessive rotting of prunes in the fall of 1897, and of a similar but less 

 serious injury in the fall of 1898. During the latter period, however, we 

 saw badly-infested peaches on sale here at Corvallis and received samples of 

 such fruit from Salem and from Roseburg. Recently Mr. ,Ioe E. Harvey of 

 Roseburg has w'ritten me that brown rot has been observed upon peaches in 

 that vicinity during the past four years. At first it attacked the Alexander 

 and other early varieties and did but little damage, but during the past two 

 years it has grown rapidly worse and has spread to other varieties to such 

 an extent as to cause general alarm. Mr. J. R. Casey of Ashland, member 

 of the State Board of Horticulture for the Third Horticultural District, has 

 informed me that the disease is present in Southern Oregon, where, how- 

 ever, it causes but little loss on account of the uniform lack of moisture at 

 the time the fruit is ripening. 



WHAT IS BROWN ROT? 



The name which we have selected as the title of this article is not particu- 

 larly characteristic of the disease under consideration. Many, perhaps most, 

 of the fung-i and bacteria which induce decay in fruits are accompanied by a 

 browning of the tissues, and hence might with equal propriety be designated 

 as the " brown rot." The disease to which we particularly refer is variously 

 described as brown rot, ripe rot of plums, fruit rot, plum fruit rot, brown 

 rot of stone fruits, plum rot, peach rot and blight, quince rot, etc., the com- 

 mon name selected depending somewhat upon the fruit or other portion of 

 the plant attacked, but more upon the individual choice of the author. 

 Brown rot characterizes the disease perhaps as well as any of the other 

 names and has the advantage that it is the one by which it is known by our 

 fruitgrowers. Whatever common name may be applied to the disease, and 

 upon whatever fruit or other portion of the plant it may occur, the cause of 

 the disease — the fungus — is the same, Monilia fructigena, Pers. 



♦Diseases of Plants, 1.S97. 



