304 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
same location the laboratory for the microscopical studies and finer 
cultures. 
Such a station, it is confidently expected, will be established at no 
distant day, and the results which then may be accomplished will be 
more in accord with the dignity of the position which this Depart- 
ment is designed to hold in its relations to American agriculture. 
V.—SPECIAL SUBJECTS. 
The plant diseases discussed in the following pages of this report 
have been made the subject of investigation either by myself or my 
assistants. Very little claim is made to originality, excepting, per- 
haps, in the manner of presentation; but it is hoped that this, together 
with the accompanying illustrations, will be found valuable and 
meet with public approval. 
The chapters on the ‘‘Smut of Indian Corn,” ‘‘Corn Rust,” and 
- the ‘‘ Powdery mildew of the Gooseberry” were prepared by outside 
agents, employed for the purpose because of their having devoted 
particular attention to these subjects. 
I wish here to express my thanks to my assistants for their con- 
stant diligence and ever-ready willingness to perform the duties as- 
signed them, and especially to commend the valuable services ren- 
dered in the preparation of the following pages by the assistant, Mr. 
B. T. Galloway, and by Miss Effie A. Southworth. 
1.—STRAWBERRY-LEAF BLIGHT. 
Spherella fragarie, Sacc. 
(Plate L.) 
(a) GENEBAL OBSERVATIONS. 
There are a dozen or more fungi which infest the Strawberry plant, 
but the best known, and doubtless the one more injurious than all the 
others combined, is that which causes the disease we have here named 
Strawberry-leaf Blight. It has been called the ‘* spot disease of straw- 
berry leaves,”* ‘‘sun-burn,” and often “‘strawberry rust.” 
This disease is due to the attacks of a parasitic fungus which is 
common both in this country andin Europe. Here we have observed 
it from Maine in the East to California in the West, and complaints 
of its ravages have come to us from Florida and other sections of the 
South. It does not limit its attacks to the cultivated varieties, for 
we have frequently observed it on wild plants, and even on the com- 
mon Cinquefoil, a plant botanically related to the Strawberry. 
The Giwlosneloat Blight fungus was first studied with the view 
of tracing its life history by two French mycologists, the Tulasne 
brothers, some twenty years ago. They figured and described ‘the 
forms, determined by them under the name of Stigmatea fragarie, 
and by this name the fungus was known in Europe until 1882, when 
it was transferred to the genus Spherella by Saccardo.{ The same 
* Trelease, 2d Ann. Rept. Wis. Exper. 5t., 1885. 
We have attempted to restrict the term ‘‘rust” to those diseases caused by 
species of the family Uredinece, and ‘‘ spot” diseases, to such as result from the attacks 
of parasites included in the genus Phyllosticta, etc., adopting the term ‘ blight » for 
those caused by species of Ranudaria, Cercospora, ete, 
tSyllog. Fung., I, 500, ; 
