yS A?ma/s of Horticulture. 



check materially the growth of that crop in America. Among 

 the hollyhocks of New York greenhouses a destructive malady 

 (^Colletotrichum malvariiui) has been at work which has already 

 made great inroads, in some cases stopping entirely the cul- 

 ture of this flower, and which, as will be noted later, has been 

 placed, through the efforts of the division of vegetable patho- 

 log}', successfully under control. Almost every scientific pub- 

 lication on the subject, and nearly every bulletin from the ex- 

 periment station botanists, announces the discovery of some 

 new disease of economic importance. Two entirely new 

 maladies of spinach in New Jersey have threatened the grow- 

 ers with disaster and called forth an excellent bulletin* on the 

 subject by Dr. Halsted. The discovery in France by Prilleux 

 and Delacroix of a destructive germ disease of potato and 

 pelargonium stems, the simultaneous rediscovery of the cu- 

 cumber mildew from Cuba in America and Japan, are both 

 points likely to prove of importance before another year. 



''That mysterious and as yet imperfectly known disease of 

 the California vine, the scourge of the region, has refused as 

 yet to be crowded into the categor}^ of bacterial or germ ma- 

 ladies, although studied both in its home and among the hills 

 of Sicily and Algeria by N. B. Pierce, agent of the division 

 of vegetable pathology. The malady resembles the foUetage 

 of the French vineyards and for the present it must be placed, 

 together with the new malady of western New York, with the 

 imperfectly understood diseases awaiting further investigation 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. The appearance in Kansas and 

 Georgia of a striking peach disease called peach rosette and 

 cosidered by Dr. Erwin F. Smith as only a form of the yel- 

 lows, reinforces anew the importance of the investigations 

 into this mysterious malady which promises more this year 

 than ever before to be identified as a specific germ disease. 

 Aside from these newly discovered diseases there are the old 

 troubles, which although well known by name, are but imper- 

 fectly understood. 



"The fungus of the strawberry leaf-spot or rust, which 

 ruins hundreds of strawberry beds yearly, has been traced in 

 the laboratory of Cornell University through its winter growth, 

 and the reason why it is profitable to collect and burn the 



* Bull. 70, New Jersey, Exp. Sta. 



