SECRETARY'S REPORT. 171 



season nearly every one spotted in that way. Mildew, which is 

 another form of disease, is a true fungus ; it floats in the atmos- 

 phere, and under tlie microscope it is very beautiful. It feeds 

 upon the grape, and ultimately destroys it. 



A gentleman has mentioned to me a case which he considered 

 mildew, but which I suspect is something like what they have 

 in California, on the coast, where there are great changes in the 

 temperature. A writer says that the grapes exuded a juice 

 which hardens on the surface during the prevalence of cold 

 winds from the coast ; subsequent wet weather washed it off, 

 and the grapes went on to ripen. We have some such sudden 

 alternations which might produce tliat result. I do not have a 

 single bunch mildew. I have seen some specimens of the l^light 

 attacking a single berry and spoiling it, while the rest of the 

 cluster ripened perfectly. A gentleman of my town has a little 

 garden on the ivcst side of his house. His house stands north 

 and south. There is the house and its back offices, then an 

 interval, and then the barn beyond. We looked upon his vines 

 for the blight, and wherever the building protected the vine from 

 the easterly wind there was no blight ; but opposite this interval, 

 where the east wind could come, there was the blight. No art 

 could guard against it. Premature heat had started the blos- 

 soms and the sap, and then came the sharp, cold weather, which 

 blighted the buds that required continued heat and dry weather. 



Mr. Sawyer, of Harvard, — I had some trouble with my 

 grapes last year, and also about five years ago. When they first 

 begin to ripen I find little cuts in them, as though cut by a pair 

 of scissors. The juices of the berry leak out, and they shrivel 

 up and drop off. My neighbors had the same trouble this year. 

 It has been a serious evil with us. 



Mr. Bull. — Did the grapes crack ? 



Mr. Sawyer. — No. They looked as if cut with a pair of 

 scissors. The Concord, Diana and Hartford Prolific were 

 affected in that way, but the Isabella was not. 



Mr. Bull. — What is the nature of the soil, and your treatment 

 of it? 



Mr. Sawyer. — It is a heavy, granite soil, not very deep nor 

 very rich. The trellis runs along by the side of a common 

 pasture wall, some four or five feet from it. 



