11 



makes its appearance so late that it cannot affect appreciably the 

 assimilating processes of the plant, and its appearance at this season 

 of the year is largely a secondary affair connected with the natural 

 dying of the tops. 



When plants are affected in a similar way with the red spores 

 (uredospores), the eft"ect upon the plant during the following season 

 is quite marked. As a rule asparagus growers in this section stop 

 cutting for^he market about the 1st of July, and by the middle of 

 July, when the summer stage generally first commences to show 

 itself, the tops are not fully grown, and it is only a matter of a few 

 days before they are completely covered with red pustules, which 

 give the plants a burned appearance and make them of little further 

 use as assimilative organs. It does not require very much intelli- 

 gence to comprehend the fact that if the plant's assimilating organs 

 are incapacitated during the two most important months in the year, 

 viz. July and August, there will be a lack of reserve material in the 

 roots for the succeeding year's crop. Such, in fact, has been the 

 condition of those plants which suft'ered from the effect of the rust 

 during July and August of last year. The loss, however, as might 

 be expected has been variable, bearing a direct relation to the sever- 

 ity of the attack. In the town of Concord, where we have been 

 able to get reliable data concerning the amount of asparagus cut 

 in the year '98, and that cut last year ('97), we have found that the 

 loss experienced by different growers varies from 15 to 80 per cent. 

 The bed which showed a loss of 80 per cent had hardly a sound 

 root remaining last year as a result of the severe attack during 1897. 

 Asparagus growers on the Cape have also experienced a loss of 20 

 to 25 per cent as a result of the rust. The lateness of the 1898 

 season would appear to account for some of this, but even when 

 this is deducted there was probably not far from 20 per cent loss 

 due to the rust alone. Generallj', however, it might be stated that 

 the loss experienced was something like 20 to 25 per cent. 



There is still another source of loss to asparagus growers 

 which is more important than that represented by the mere 

 falling off of a single year's crop. We refer to the great injury 

 which the roots received on account of the rust. We have observed 

 many beds in which large numbers of roots were nearly dead, and, 

 as they are not likely to recover from this effect, the loss from this 

 source will not be replaced until new plants are set out and matured. 



