32 



watermelon (1898). Diseased waterinelon plants containing tlie internal 

 fungus were also received from Lykesland and Gurley, S. C. (189G), Pel- 

 ham, Ga. (1895), and from Pepper Grove near Galveston, Tex. (189o). 

 The cotton disease was also received from western Georgia in 1894. 

 In addition, Professor Atkinson, in 1892, re^wrted cotton disease asso- 

 ciated with his Fusarium vasinfectum from seven localities in Alabama, 

 and from Pine Bluff, Ark. The melon wilt was also reported to the 

 writer in 1895 from Ocean Springs, Miss., bj' Prof. F. S. Earle, who 

 stated that it had been in that vicinity for at least six years, and that 

 in one instance it destroyed nearly an entire crop of melons. These 

 melons were on land where melons formerly wilted to a slight extent 

 and which had been in pasture for two years. 



Finally, Mr. Wm. A. Orton found the cotton and cowpea disease at 

 Dillon, S. C, in 1899. The cotton blight was pretty uniformly dis- 

 tributed over one 5-acre field. He also found it to a lesser degree in 

 many other fields, and it was reported to be generally prevalent in that 

 region. 



This fungus, therefore, is widespread in the Southern States. It is 

 to be looked for all the way from Xew Jersey to Texas, although it has 

 not been definitely settled that it occurs north of southeastern Vir- 

 ginia or west of Arkansas. With exception of the one place in Arkan- 

 sas it occurs, so far as known, only in the Atlantic Coast and Gulf 

 States. It is specially to be searched for in jSTew Jersey, Delaware, 

 Maryland, and West Virginia, and in northeastern Xorth Carolina, 

 where a destructive watermelon disease of unknown origin was very 

 prevalent about ten years ago. No account of this disease has come 

 from any i)art of the Old World. 



PARASITISM, INFECTION EXPERIMENT^, ETC. 



This fungus is an active parasite and destroys a great many plants 

 by first plugging the water ducts and afterwards invading the paren- 

 chymatic tissues. In case of the watermelon, the disease due to this 

 fungus is so prevalent in places as to destroy large fields, and to 

 threaten the extinction of melon growing for market purposes, notably 

 at Monetta, S. C, Pelham, Ga., Chuckatuck, Va., and Galveston, Tex. 

 The cotton fungus is also spreading from year to year, and has already 

 spoiled many acres of valuable land on the fertile coast islands of 

 South Carolina. Last year one large grower of sea-island cotton wrote 

 that he had been compelled to stake out and abandon 15 per cent of 

 his best cotton land, all of which is tile drained and under a high state 

 of cultivation. 



The fungus winters over in the soil and enters the plant through its 

 underground parts. It first fills the vessels (PI. I, 10, PI. IV, and PI. 

 V, 6), causing, especially in melon vines, a sudden wilt of the foliage. 

 Subsequently, as the plant dies, it invades all of the softer tissues and 

 fruits on the surface (PI. I, 11, 12, PI. II, 6). The internal fungus 



