MISCELLA.NEOUS PAPERS. 257 



that editors of horticultural papers who aim to keep a front rank should 

 pay a little more attention to such matters. What we want about these 

 matters are facts or sound reasons. Suppositions will not do ; they 

 are too misleading. We must try to get the idea out of fruit-growers 

 and farmers that the growth of such parasites cannot be checked by 

 spraying. We must prevent, for we cannot cure, for in most cases we 

 would kill the host or permanently injure it before a cure could be 

 effected ; there may be some exceptions, but they are few indeed. 



F. LlONBERGEE. 



SPORES OR SEEDS OF FUiTGT. 



On account of the enormous damages done every year by vege- 

 table parasites to the various farm crops, it becomes to be of the 

 highest importance that we should become better acquainted with 

 these spores or seeds. We should try as much as possible to study 

 the conditions necessary for the germinating of these spores as well as 

 the development of the fungi. For, if we attain a fair knowledge of 

 these conditions, we will often find a way to deprive the parasite of 

 one or more of them, and so work against its spreading. 



It is my aim in this paper to simply explain the different modes 

 that these vegetable parasites have to reproduce themselves, as well as 

 the conditions necessary for their development. 



Fungi, I suppose, are quite well understood to be plants. They 

 are divided into two classes — parasites and saprophites. The former 

 live upon and derive their nourishment from living plants, while the 

 latter subsist upon dead or decaying matter. It is the former class, 

 therefore, that is the most destructive to our fruit crops. These para- 

 sites are reproduced by spores or seeds similar to higher plants. The 

 term spore is generally used or applied to the reproductive bodies, as 

 we might call them, of these minute and tiowerless plants, which in 

 fact are simply the seeds, if we take as authority such men as Webster, 

 who says that seed is the substance that nature prepares for the repro- 

 duction and preservation of the species. 



These spores are again divided into two principal classes, sexual 

 and non-sexual. The former, of which there are several kinds, are thin- 

 walled and capable of germinating in a very short time, providing of 

 course that the proper climatic conditions are present, and these often 

 spread the fungus at an enormous rate during the summer ; they are 

 often called summer spores. 

 H— 17 



