78 



like I lie g.vj».s,y modi woi-k in MuSHat*liii«(3tls, lo jH'i'Vciil re iiilrc- 

 tioii. li' the al)()ve points, liowever, are not trnc, it seems to me, 

 at least, that the efforts for control planned for this State will be 

 time, money and trees thrown away. 



Tlie anthor of the first view has not, to my kiiowlediic, claimed 

 that the chestnnt blight was imported from Europe, or that tlu; 

 l*]ni'o|K'an chestnuts in this country are especially immune to 

 tlie disease. If he should ever advocate that it is a Enropc^an im- 

 portation, I do not see how he can account for the fact that it 

 has caused no very noticeable trouble on that continent, and yet, 

 when introduced here, kills off the European chestnuts as readily 

 as the native ones; unless he admits that w^eather or other con- 

 ditions have been unfavorable for these chestnuts, and have thus 

 favored tUe development of the fungus. 



Proceeding now to my OAvn theory, let me take it up point by 

 point. 



First, that the chestnut blight is a native of this country. In 

 IDOJ) I sent to I*rofessor Farlow, of Harvard University, the first 

 specimen of Diaportlic parasitica that he had examined, and 

 asked his opinion as to whether or not it was the same as a cer- 

 tain species that Schweinitz had years before described on chest- 

 nuts from this country. He replied that it Avas not, but that it 

 agreed more perfectly with the genus Endothia than with Dia- 

 porthe, and that it was closely related to, but apparently dis- 

 tinct from, Endothia gijrosa. Endothia gi/rosa was originally 

 described from Carolina and Pennsylvania by Schweinitz as 

 Hphacria radiculis and Sphaeria (jyrom, and reported by him on 

 Fagus and Juglans. It has since been reported in the United 

 States on Liquidambar and Quercus species, chiefly on the lat- 

 ter. 



With the clue furnished by Professor Farlow, I found and so 

 stated in my 1908 report, that a specimen of Endothia gjjrosa 

 on chestnut collected by Scarrado in Italy had been issued in de 

 Thuemen's Myc. Univ. No. 769, and that so far as its gross ap- 

 pearance and pycnidial stage (the only stage present in my speci- 

 men) were concerned, I could not distinguish it from Diaporthe 

 parasitica Murr. As the ascospore stage was not present, I did 

 not venture to cbdm that they were the same species. 



