152 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture 



cultural Science their discovery of bitter rot of grapes. Their 

 field study was followed by laboratory investigations, by Viala 

 in France and by Scribner at Washington. In France for the first 

 time the mature stage of the fungus causing black rot of grapes 

 was found. Scribner obtained specimens from Vineland, New 

 Jersey, and Neosho, Missouri, and in 1888 in two more papers, 

 "New observations on the fungus of black rot of grapes"'''' and 

 "Successful treatment of black rot," '° he reviewed the results of 

 their studies, genetically connecting the "three stages or forms" 

 of the fungus of black rot, described the past efforts in placing 

 the forms in correct mycological systemization, and called attention 

 to the disease's geographic distribution " from Canada to Florida, 

 and west to Texas." He warned that the recent introductions of 

 vine stocks from the east to California to " avoid the ravages of 

 the Phylloxera" might take the fungus to the Pacific coast. The 

 important point was that in New Jersey a successful treatment for 

 the disease had been experimentally demonstrated by Colonel A. 

 W. Pearson, a special agent of the Department of Agriculture. 

 That confidence in the treatment was shared was shown in a letter 

 of December 14, 1887 to Charles Sprague Sargent from W. A. 

 Stiles who said: "The experiments of Scribner and Viala have 

 been pretty well ventilated. I mean the study of the downy mildew 

 and another kind [of grape disease] and its treatment with Copper 

 Sulphate, and also the trial of the Copper Sulphate as preventive 

 of black rot." During this year the control of black rot of the 

 grape and some " decisive results ... in controlling several potato 

 diseases " " strengthened the position of the federal government's 

 work in the study of diseases of agricultural crops. 



In 1888 Viala and Ferrouillat prepared a manual on the treat- 

 ment of vine diseases.^" Sulphur and copper compounds and their 

 uses, together with various types of apparatus for spraying and 

 dusting, were described. Scribner told the Society for the Pro- 

 motion of Agricultural Science that year that " proper applications 

 of compounds having sulphate of copper for their base" would 

 combat the black rot of grapes. But he also advised that Bordeaux 



"* Idem, 9th meet., 68-72, 1888. 

 " Idem, 72-73. 



'^ B. T. Galloway, Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United 

 States, Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 195. 

 '^ Erwin F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 21. 



