OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 61 



nor the magnifying glass could detect its existence on the roots, is pre- 

 cisely the state of things to expect whenever the lice have been in- 

 juriously or fatally abundant the previous year ; and I can not too 

 strongly or earnestly enforce the fact upon our grape-growers that by 

 the time a vine dies, or is brought to death's door, by these root-lice^ 

 we can only discover the evidence of their work, as the lice them- 

 selves are no longer to be found. 



But there is better proof than this circumstantial evidence, of the 

 sorry part played by Phylloxera in the unwonted death of grape- 

 vines last spring. That the lice were injuriously abundant on many 

 kinds of vines, and in many parts of the State, in the fall of 1871, I 

 know from personal experience, and have sulficiently shown ; and in 

 the spring following the more or less complete destruction of the 

 roots, we might naturally have expected to find either lack of vitality 

 or death ot such vines. I also made a careful study of the mortality 

 in the spring, digging up many dying or dead vines in the vicinity of 

 St. Louis, and in every instance 1 found that the liner roots had wasted 

 away, and that the larger ones were hyperlrophized jast as they are 

 when injured by the root-lice; while upon those not yet dead there 

 was no ditliculty in finding the more living evidence of disease in the 

 shape of the lice themselves, and the knots which they caused. In a 

 vineyard belonging to Charles PafFrath, of Melrose, referred to in the 

 extracts, I found a forcible illustration of the influence of Phylloxera. 

 This vineyard is on a gentle slope, and is composed mostly of Cataw- 

 bas, with which the owner has been quite successful, owing, as I be- 

 lieve, to the great pains which he takes to keep the roots healthy and 

 vigorous, by first mellowing his soil to a great depth, and then plant- 

 ing with the utmost care. In this vineyard were both young and old 

 vines, and the former had not suffered at all, while the latter showed 

 greatest mortality, not in the higher or drier portion, but along cer- 

 tain middle rows, and mostl}" in the center. I examined the roots of 

 many of these dead vines, as well as of some in the immediate vicin- 

 ity of them, and was able to show the rotten and exhausted roots of 

 the former, and the lice at work on the latter; and thus convince the 

 owner, as well as Mr. Wm. Coleman, who was present at the time, that 

 fiie lice, though unseen and unheeded, had not been unoccupied. No 

 man could have been more skeptical as to the working of these lice 

 than Mr. J. J. Kelly, of Webster; yet in a half day spent in his vine- 

 yard I was able to convince him that they had played an important 

 part in the death of his Catawba vines. And so of others. 



To summarize from the known facts in the case, I am of the de- 

 cided opinion that, while the unprecedented drouth may be justly 

 looked upon as the indirect cause of the trouble, the more immediate 

 and direct cause must be attributed to Phylloxera. The meteoro- 

 logical conditions served to promote the undue increase of the lice at 

 the same time that they rendered the vines less capable of resisting 



