New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 529 



Plasmodiojphora infest the leaves as well as the roots is not a new 

 one. Woronin demonstrated it long ago. Our own observations 

 show its bearing upon practical agriculture. 



The hot-bed where the seedling plants are grown should receive 

 careful attention. In preparing it, no soil should be used which has 

 ever grown any of the plants subject to club-root. A small quan- 

 tity of air-slacked lime should be mixed with the soil as an addi- 

 tional precaution. At time of setting, all plants which show the 

 least sign of the disease should be discarded. When once the 

 disease has gained entrance into the tissues there is no remedy for it. 



III. SPRAYING TOMATOES. 



There are several fungous diseases of field tomatoes. On the 

 whole, most damage is perhaps done by "black rot," which attacks 

 the fruit; bnt during the past season on Long Island this disease 

 has given less trouble than another one caused by a species of 

 Cylindrosjforium. Dr. Halsted^ re^oris, 2i Cylindrosporium A\%Q2l?,q 

 of tomatoes as being abundant in New Jersey in 1894. On Long 

 Island it has been very common and caused great loss. Both early 

 and late tomatoes were attacked. Shortly after the fruit began to 

 ripen the leaves turned brown and dried up, as if the plants were 

 suffering from lack of water, which could not have been, as there 

 was an abundance of rain. It was a frequent sight to see whole 

 fields of tomato plants with the foliage nearly all dead while still 

 loaded with immature fruit, which would finally take on color, but 

 was necessarily of very inferior quality. An examination of the 

 diseased leaves showed that very little of the ordinary leaf-blight 

 fungus, Macrosporiu7)% Solani, E. & M., was present. Occasion- 

 ally the cinnamon-brown leaf-mould fungus, Cladosp07'mm fulvicm, 

 Cke., was found, but the majority of the damage was due to a 

 species of Cylindrosporiiim. This appears to be a new disease 

 economically. The " black rot " of the fruit, caused chiefly by 

 Mac7'Osporium Tomato, Cke., is a destructive disease, but not as 

 common as usual on Long Island the past season. Early tomatoes 

 do not suffer to any considerable extent. With late tomatoes it is 

 observed that the first fruits to ripen are most subject; also, varie- 

 ties differ greatly in their susceptibility to the disease. Those 



1 New Jersey Agr'l Exp. Sta. Report for 1894, p. 361. 



34 



