REPORT OF THE SOCIETY 117 



proved futile. From carefully conducted experiments these investigators suggest 

 that the cause of the trouble Ues in the soil. 



C. R. Orton has also reported the disease from Pennsylvania. 



In 1919, Paine and Bewley (5) reported a disease of tomatoes, with appa- 

 rently identical symptoms with those described above, as being present in 

 England and the Channel Islands. These investigators were able to isolate a 

 bacillus, which they later identified as Bacillus lathyri, from diseased tissue, 

 and with it they «ould bring about artificial infection. 



Schroevers in 1922, mentions stripe disease of tomatoes as occuring in 

 Holland, and Tajdor in 1923, reports it from New Zealand. 



Gardner and Kendrick (6) in an article on tomato mosaic published in 

 1922 from Indiana, are of the opinion that the diseases described by Bailey of 

 Cornell and Selby of Ohio, as well as those reported from Pennsylvania and 

 Ontario, are mosaic in its most destructive from. They state that "it seems 

 very likelj^ that many of the puzzling greenhouse tomato diseases or winter 

 blights reported in literature were merely different manifestations of mosaic." 



B. T. Dickson reported it from Macdonald College in 1923, this being 

 the first time that the disease was reported from the Province of Quebec. Pro- 

 fessor Dickson inclines to the view that it is a mosaic in which Necrosis occurs 

 under certain environmental conditions. 



Since there is still some doubt as to the actual cause of this so-called stripe 

 or streak disease of tomatoes, it was decided to investigate the problem, and 

 Mr. J. K. Richardson, M. Sc. began a study of the disease in 1923 under 

 Quebec conditions. The disease was carried over the summer of 1923 on 

 tomato plants in the field. Healthy plants were inoculated by rubbing their 

 leaves with crushed leaves and petioles of diseased plants. 



In the early spring of 1924, at the suggestion of Dr. Dickson, the writer 

 undertook to carry on the investigations in the experimental greenhouses and 

 plots at Macdonald College. 



It was thought advisable to make a progress report at this meeting of the 

 Quebec Society for the Protection of Plants, especially as it is the first time 

 that work is being done on the disease in this province. 



Symptoms of the Disease. 



An attempt to describe in detail a set of clear-cut symptoms of the stripe 

 disease of tomato, would necessarily be inadequate because of the various 

 forms which the disease takes depending apparently upon the succulence and 

 age of the plant, as well as upon the temperature, illumination, etc. Therefore 

 the general symptoms will be given with here and there variations from the 

 general type which are often quite characteristic. 



At Stage of Infection. 



Ordinarily the disease is first noticed on the tomato plants about the time 

 the first blossom truss appears, and necrotic streaks occur in a zone about a 



