130 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



berry growers that vines deprived of their foliage by caterpillars fail to produce 

 berries the succeeding year, showing clearly that the normal condition of the 

 vine or tree (as the case may be), in any given year is necessary to the proper 

 development of fruit in the succeeding year, hence it has become the practice 

 of fruit growers to thin the fruit out each year to prevent exhaustion, and the 

 trees thus treated will bear fruit regularly and of better quality, to the mani- 

 fest advantage of the grower. In view of these facts it is evident that the 

 grape growers of Kew England who complain of a superabundance of foliage 

 Avould lind it to their advantage to pinch a portion of the leaf buds when such 

 a superabundance is imminent. By this course the sap would be husbanded 

 for the maturity of the fruit, and the foliage sufficiently thinned without de- 

 pending on the aid of the vine fungus which is always and under all circum- 

 stances an injury to the vine and an obstacle to successful grape culture. 



For eight years I have been making observations and experiments each sea- 

 son on the native vines growing on the grounds of the Department and on the 

 prominent fungi common to them. One vine in particular has attracted my 

 special attention for experimental purposes, viz. : the Devereux, which is much 

 prized in the Southern States as a wine grape, but very unreliable in this dis- 

 trict. During wet seasons it is the first to be affected by Peronospora viticola, 

 its most succulent leaves being chiefly attacked. In very dry seasons some of 

 the grape bunches dry up and become shriveled, and on making a microscopic 

 examination of them I have found hundreds of the Perithecia (fruit bearing 

 bodies), of Phoma invicola described by Berkeley and Curtis. 



During the present season, 1879, a letter was received from Florida contain- 

 ing specimens of grapes of the species aestivalis affected by a new 

 fungus undescribed in "Thumen's Fungi of the Grape Vine." I forwarded 

 specimens of this fungus to Prof. Chas. Peck of Albany, Botanist of the State 

 of New York, who writes of it as follows : ^^I suspect it is a very rare fungus. 

 Its spores are much like those of Ascochyta Ellisie " Tliumen,^^ but a little 

 larger, and its habit differs, as that occurs on spots on the leaf. If it always 

 has such a stroma it would be well to call it Ascochyta stromatic, or Phoma 

 Strom atica, for I am not sure that the spores ooze out as in Ascochyta. 



This fungus is very destructive to the grape bunches. It sets up fermen- 

 tation on the leading petioles of the bunches as well as on the petioles of 

 the leaves of the vine. All the vines of our correspondent were destroyed 

 by this new fungus. I have named it according to Prof, Pecl'y Plioma 

 stomatic. 



Two new parasites are just announced as having appeared on the grape vine 

 in northern Italy. Dr. Cattaneo describes them as being closely allied to 

 Plioma invicola. ''The nearly ripe berries shrivel up and become more or less 

 strongly coated with a sweetish granular substance soluble in water. The con- 

 ceptacles under the epidermis of the berrv are unicellular and have a yellowish 

 tint." 



From the foregoing investigations and otiier evidences, I have come to the 

 conclusion that the special cause of the failure of the grape crop of the State 

 of New Jersey and other sections of tlie United States in 1877 resulted from 

 the heavy rains and night dews which occurred in the months of June and 

 July of that year. 



During the present year 1879 the months of June and July have been favored 

 with dryness and moderately high temperature in nearly every section of the 

 country, and we hear of no grape rot from sections of the United States where 



