64 REPORT OF THE BACTERIOLOGIST OF THE 
As we have noted in an earlier bulletin® the germs causing the 
disease sometimes gain an entrance through the broken roots, 
at the time of transplanting. This avenue of infection is most 
used during the early life of the plants. Later the germs com- 
monly enter through the water pores at the margins of the leaves. 
Accordingly, the regular removal of the diseased leaves has been 
recommended by different writers as a method of prevention but 
we have carefully tested this method and found it to be a com- 
plete failure.® 
Since the disease is annually the cause of considerable loss to 
the cabbage growers of the State it has been thought best to con- 
tinue our study of the disease in the hopes of finding successful 
means of controlling it. This publication deals with the vitality 
of the disease germs in a dry condition, as well as their ability to 
survive upon cabbage seed, together with some suggestions as to 
protection against this danger. 
A belief in the transmission of the disease by means of the 
seed has been held by many large growers and the subject has 
been mentioned by other writers, but so far as we can learn this 
is the first attempt to determine experimentally the correctness 
of this view. While we believe that the facts to be presented 
have been established in a reliable manner there are so many 
more related points of interest and importance which have not 
yet been solved that we had not intended to present the subject 
until the latter had been studied. However, the facts which 
we have determined seem to have such a practical bearing that 
we have presented them in this preliminary bulletin trusting to 
enlarge upon their relation to the whole problem in a later 
publication. 
BLACK ROT IN FIELDS OF SEED CABBAGE. 
SOURCE OF CABBAGE SEED. 
At the beginning of the last century, Holland and Denmark 
furnished the bulk of our cabbage seed. The production at home 
has increased steadily and now the seed imported represents a 
small fraction of the total supply and that largely of the cheaper 
grade. 
® New York Agr. Exp. Sta. Bul. 232: 60-61. 1903. 
* Loe. cit., pp. 49-62. 
