232 Grape 'P?tylloxera. 



A committee of the Society, constituted six months since, reported at this meeting 

 upon lists of fruits for general cultivation ; and, in submitting their report, remark 

 that such report is a compromise, and not fully satisfactory to any one of them ; add- 

 ing the suggestion that the time must soon come, if, indeed, it has not already ar- 

 rived, when it will be found necessary to district the State and provide local lists. 



The sessions were enlivened with vocal music, and also an original poem, by Mrs. 

 Wheaton, of Kalamazoo; and the meeting was, on all hands, conceded to be a thor- 

 oughly enjoyable as well as profitable occasion. T. T. Lyon. 



Grape Phylloxera. 



BY S. J. PARKER, M. D. 



THIS is a term which, if the present opinions of many distinguished and useful 

 men are sustained, must become familiar to every grape grower. There has long 

 been noticed certain unaccounted-for years of the immaturity of the wood of the vine, 

 want of ripening at the usual period of its fruit, and in the winter or early part of 

 the next season after, the death of the old canes of the vine. This immaturing of 

 fruit and buds, decay of leaves, we have too often ascribed to wet or dry, cold or hot 

 fall weather, or some other apology of a season. The death of vines during the win- 

 ter, and especially by the hot sunbeams of early spring, and the dryness and heat of 

 later spring, we too often have ascribed to any cause except the injury done to the 

 roots, and especially the rootlets of the vine, by an insect now known the world over 

 as the Phylloxera. Peihaps it was certain French savaiis and German observers that 

 first discovered this minute pest on their vines. But to Prof. Riley, the distin- 

 guished entomologist of Missouri, so far as I know, is due the first distinct public 

 announcement, in a manner to attract attention in this country, that this insect here 

 was also the cause of the injuries to vines usually credited to other causes. 



Several others may have spoken of it, especially of our resident German friends. 

 An insect was discovered, ten years ago, in winter, in a certain propagating house in 

 the middle of New York, and the owner said, "it is the worst enemy I have; I 

 could propagate hundreds of thousands of vines, if I could get rid of it." Later he 

 abandoned the "green eye propagation," because " the vines were stunted" by the 

 insect. I have a vine of Eumelan that I paid him three dollars for, now — years 

 old. It has not grown six inches above the ground. It has Phylloxera, or the 

 Pemphagus vitifolia, which is the name for the same insect when it preys on the leaf. 

 But as Phylloxera vartatrix has become more the general term for it, and expresses 

 the idea of injury anywhere, to both leaf and root, it must be accepted as the final 

 and adopted name. 



If my ideas and observations are correct, one form of the Phylloxera is its appear- 

 ance in midsummer, on the leaves of the vine, and usually by punctures on the top 



