VINE MILDEW. 1X7 



we consult the reports of the ditferent commissions, and amongst 

 thera those of Victor Rendu to the Minister of Agriculture and 

 Commerce, and Louis Leclei'c to the Minister of the Interior, 

 we shall find in almost every page new proofs confirmatory of the 

 opinion of those who, like H. Mohl, consider the fungus as the 

 essential cause of the evil, and very little to corroborate the 

 conti'ary opinion, or which at least does not admit of some other 

 mode of explanation. In the first of these reports, for instance, 

 we read, " All other circumstances being equal, the disease has 

 been more severe in those vines which were remarkable for their 

 precocious or vigorous vegetation. . . The young vines, laden 

 with grapes, have been everywhere more severely attacked than 

 the others (F. Rendu Rapport, p. 30). . . Vines situated in the 

 best soils, and the most vigorous are much the most diseased 

 (I.e., p. 56; and again p. 58 :) The most vigorous vines have been 

 the most afflicted." 



It should be observed that Victor Rendu does not profess any 

 precise opinion, and that he relates faithfully what he has observed. 

 Great stress may thei'efore be laid upon his facts, which, more- 

 over, accord perfectly with those of Louis Leclerc, from whom I 

 shall quote only the following passage : — " The vegetation of the 

 vine, in the present year, with the exception of a very small 

 number of vineyards, has been everywhere strong and vigorous, 

 even in the places where it suffered most in 1851. The vine is 

 everywhere, in the language of the workmen, (jaillarde. Some 

 persons, indeed, have discovered in this beauty and richness with 

 which the tree is clothed, an aggravating circumstance and 

 additional proof that its constitution is deeply impaired. I must 

 avow that this passes the limits of my weak intellect, and that it 

 is still impossible to admit that a plant is diseased for the very 

 reason that it is in too excellent a state of health." 



The arguments brought by the adherents of the other opinion 

 are without weight ; they are for the most part vague, or rest on 

 that multitude of particular cases which in agriculture, as in 

 medicine, prove absolutely nothing. And in relation to this 

 subject I shall transcribe the following passage from Mohl's 

 second memoir: — "Far less are the vines affected by a local 

 malady ; for, as is proved by the phenomena which I am about 

 to relate, the fungus does not appear on parts of the plant already 

 impaired by disease, but on the contrary on perfectly sound 

 organs, and the disease of the tissues begins precisely at those 

 spots to which the fungus adheres by special organs of attachment. 



