WILT-DISEASES OF TOBACCO. 237 



LOSSES; TREATMENT. 



The Florida tobacco -disease, according to Mr. W. W. Cobey, has been present on a 

 plantation near Quincy, Florida, for several years. The loss in 1905 was estimated at about 

 $4,000, a total of about 4 acres of plants being destroyed. The disease was patthy, but 

 occurred on many parts of the plantation, being much more widely distributed than in 1904. 

 This was probably due to the fact that the refuse tobacco material of 1904 was composted 

 and spread on the land in 1905, the parasite being undoubtedly present in some of the 

 composted tobacco leaves. The losses around Quincy, Florida, in 1908 far exceeded those 

 of 1905. 



Mr. Shamel, a tobacco expert of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, wrote to the 

 Department as follows respecting the Florida tobacco disease in June 1908: 



The Granville wilt has appeared to an alarming extent, especially in the fields of the Owl Com- 

 mercial Company [Quincy, Florida]. I have sent plants to Stevens for identification and to Dr. 

 Briggs in connection with some soil samples. The wilt does not attack the plants noticeably until 

 from 3 to 4 weeks after transplanting. Then one leaf or a portion of a leaf begins to wilt, then follows 

 the destruction of the entire plants. In some of the shaded fields on the Owl plantation from 25 to 

 70 per cent of the plants have been killed. On an affected field of last season, planted in potatoes this 

 year, the potato plants have all been killed. It is the most discouraging factor I have ever seen in 

 the way of a parasitic disease of tobacco. 



The writer examined some of the diseased plants from this locality in 1 905 and again 

 in 1908, but could find no Fusarium, only bacteria. 



The losses in North Carolina have been much greater than those reported from Florida. 



In the Thirtieth Annual Report of the North Carolina Experiment Station for the 

 year ending June 30, 1907, Dr. F. L. Stevens reports that the Granville tobacco wilt- 

 continues to spread and is reported as worse this year, and the loss is said to be 25 to 100 per cent of 

 the crop in the infected region. The loss in one county is estimated this date at $20,000. It is 

 estimated to be 40 per cent more destructive this year than last year. 



Reports to the writer in 1908 from North Carolina indicated more extensive losses 

 than any previous year. Many planters harvested their tobacco in July, unripe and half- 

 grown, in order to save some portion of it. 



In June 1908, Mr. Cozart, statistical agent for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 wrote as follows from Creedmoor, Granville County, North Carolina, respecting the pros- 

 pect for a crop of tobacco: 



In making this report I am at a loss to estimate the tobacco crop. We have a fine growth, good 

 size, and it promises to be a good crop, but we have a serious problem to contend with the wilt 

 tobacco. There is hardly a farm in this township free from it. It is very serious and spreading at 

 an alarming rate; 20 per cent of our tobacco already lost by wilt, and if ratio continues, 30 to 40 per 

 cent will be lost by the time it goes to knife. 



W. E. Graham, of Church Road, Virginia, reports (October 7, 1908) that the Granville 

 tobacco wilt is getting worse on his place all the time, and further, that it is " confined mostly 

 to gray lands, as I have seen very little on red soils." 



In his report for 1907-8, Stevens, of the North Carolina Experiment Station, reports 

 the Granville tobacco wilt as occurring in Granville, Durham, Vance, and Ashe counties 

 in North Carolina. According to the experience of Mr. Tunstall, land affected with the 

 wilt left without tobacco for 10 years is still affected so that if tobacco is again planted it 

 will become diseased. It is also said that there came under his personal observation one 

 field in which the tobacco was very badly wilted, and in which, it is stated, tobacco had 

 not been planted for at least twenty-five years. No statement is made, however, respecting 



