2:32 DISEASE OF THE VINE. 



fallen into such an error, allowing themselves, he says, to be led 

 astray by some French writer. He calls the disease which has 

 appeared on the vines in England a spot, because of the 

 analogy of its pathological characters with the spot of the 

 Orange tribe which appeared in Italy in the commencement of 

 the present century, and still attacks other plants, and which 

 appeared on the vines of Prussian gardens towards the year 1835, 

 and was described by Nietner, and especially by Fintelmann. 

 under the name of small-pox. Berkeley, probably not aware of 

 these previous publications, only speaks of it in 1847, and figures 

 in the Gardeners Chronicle the little fungus under the name 

 of Oidium Tuckeri in honour of the gardener who first called 

 attention to its fatal effects on the Vines cultivated near Margate. 



But if we admit with Sig. Berenger that the Grape mildew 

 was the disease which prevailed first in Prussia and afterwards 

 appeared in England, we must nevertheless conclude that it differs 

 considerably from that which began to spread so much last year 

 in Italy. Indeed no one amongst us has observed the appearances, 

 at the end of May, from the effect of a fungus, on the epidermis 

 of the young wood or on the leaves, of those spots which (as 

 stated by Sig. Berenger, quoting the observations of Meyer) have 

 the appearance of ulcers, spreading at the expense of the organic 

 substance in which they originate, and leaving, especially on the 

 leaves, cavities pierced like a sieve which corrode the extremity 

 of the shoots, causing the latter to disarticulate and separate 

 from the old wood, and the old wood itself to be finally attacked 

 by the disease and destroyed clown to the roots. 



I am persuaded that not a single case has been authenticated, 

 at least in Tuscany, in which the Vines, however strongly attacked 

 by the prevailing parasite, have been destroyed, as in Germany 

 and England, without the root and the main stem remaining 

 uninjured. We have it, on the contrary, as an ascertained fact 

 that the shoots of the Vine in the present year, 1852, are 

 considerably more vigorous than those of the spring of last year 

 before the appearance of the disease. The mischief suffered by 

 us has been confined to the total loss of the crop of Grapes in 

 some localities, and a deterioration of the quality in others, but 

 our Vines vegetate with the usual vigour, and give hopes that in 

 future years we may have our usual harvest. 



Passing over, therefore, the theory that the disease which has 

 done so much injury in the northern gardens and hothouses is 

 identical with that which has rendered our vintage less productive 



