50 



Mildew. 



BUSHBERG CATALOGUE. 



Rot. 



Riparia crosses with Labr. : Amber (Rommel's), 

 Marion, Uhland. 



Hybr., Labr. and Vinifera, Labr. and Hybr., and 

 Vinif. with Rip.: Black Eagle, Brighton, 

 Brandt, Herbert, Lindley, Triumph, Wilder. 

 IV. CATEGORY: suffering seriously even in normal 

 seasons ; entirely unreliable, except in some few 

 favored localities, which are free from mildew. 



JEstivalis, Elsinburg, Eumelan. 



Labrusca, South. Division : Adirondac, Cassady, 

 Creveling, Isabella, lona, Mottled, Maxataw- 

 ney, Union Village, Rebecca, Walter. 



Undetermined Class: DELAWARE. 



Hybr. of Vinif. and Labr,: Agawam, Allen's 

 hybr. Amenia, Barry, Black Defiance, Croton, 

 Irving, Massasoit, Merrimack, Salem, Sen- 

 asqua. 



Hybr. of Vinf. and Rip. Autuchon, Canada. 

 Cornucopia, Othello. 



Varieties not sufficiently tried, and especially new 

 varieties, we would not presume to classify ; but one 

 may safely judge of their resistance to mildew by their 

 parentage. The seedlings of the Concord, such as 

 Moore's Early, Pocklington, Worden's Seedling; or of 

 the Taylor and Clinton, such as Bacchus, Montefiore, 

 Pearl, will most probably suffer very little, if at all, 

 .from mildew, while the seedlings of the Catawba, the 

 Delaware, the Eumelan, or the Isabella, and all hy- 

 brids (of Vin.) give but faint hopes for their success in 

 localities usually infested by mildew. It is further 

 noteworthy that all Grape-vines, planted in city-gar- 

 dens, especially if trained to buildings, under the 

 shelter of their projecting roofs, are generally exempt 

 from mildew, even in unfavorable seasons. 



It is supposed that this immunity from the disease 

 is due to the sulphuric coal-smoke-laden atmosphere 

 in our cities, which may prevent fungoid growth, and to 

 the shelter which protects the vines from heavy dews, 

 consequently from the development of the parasite. 

 Wm. Saunders, the eminent Superintendent of the 

 Experimental Gardens of the United States Depart, 

 ment of Agriculture at Washington, D. C., long ago 

 demonstrated and reported that varieties inclined to 

 mildew can be grown to perfection, when they are 

 protected from heavy dews, either by artificial or nat- 

 ural expedients, such as those of covering the trellis 

 upon which they are tied by a canopy of boards, can- 

 vas or glass . But grape growers will rarely resort to 

 such expedients, and generally prefer to select varie- 

 ties which are less subject to mildew. 



The black ROT (Phoma uvicola) makes its appearance 

 on the nearly full grown berries, exhibiting, in the first 

 stage, a small discolored (whitish) round spot, which 

 soon expands in circumference, surrounded by a dis- 

 tinct aureole of darker hue and shading off to a light 

 Thrown ; the surrounding berry turns darker brown, and 

 exhibits (under a magnifier) a pustulous surface ; then, 

 gradually, the berry shrivels, dries up and turns black. 

 In midsummer, when the weather is sultry and oppres- 

 sive, thunder storms and rain showers frequent, the 

 horizon at evenings illumed by continuous flashes of 

 lightning, and when th8 vines are dew-drenched in the 

 morning, then rot appears, and often disappears (or is 



rather interrupted in its progress) and re-appears with 

 these phenomena. We imay look and wonder, power- 

 less, yet knowing 



" That the bright hopes of to-day 

 May be dispelled by next morn !" 



The disease is generally preceded by the appear- 

 ance of numerous ^pots of brown color on the surface 

 of the grape leaves ; later these spots turn to a deeper 

 brown, and finally holes appear in then- places. In 

 this respect-it is quite similar to the disease known as 

 Anthracnose or Charbon in France, as the Schivarze 

 Brenner (black burner) in Germany, Switzerland, etc. 

 But while, there, this disease attacks the young shoots 

 and stems, leaving wounds as if eaten out by insects, 

 causing the drying up of the epidermis, producing a 

 deep slit on one side of the berry and leaving the other 

 half of the same apparently healthy, fully coloring 

 and ripening ; the brown spots preceding our Rot rarely 

 attack the shoots or stems of our grape-vines, and the 

 black Rot of this country never produces mere slits, 

 bnt always completely destroys those berries which 

 are once touched by it. While the Anthracnose weak- 

 ens the vine and causes the foliage to turn yellow 

 and dry up, the black Rot seems not to affect the 

 vigor of the vine nor its foliage in the least. Of late, 

 however, it attacks not rarely from one to three- 

 fourths of all the grapes in the vineyards of the 

 Ohio, Mississippi and lower Missouri valleys, and 

 is . there the great obstacle to successful grape- 

 culture. Thirty years ago it was supposed that the 

 Catawba, more than any other grape, was subject to 

 rot, but now nearly ALL varieties (except Delaware, 

 Cynthiana, Nortons) are often more or less attacked by 

 this baneful parasite. It infests the most vigorous 

 vines as much, if not more than weak growers. The 

 Concord has of late proved as unresisting to the black 

 Rot as the Catawba. The theory that a plant can be 

 attacked by fungoid diseases only when in a debilitated 

 condition, does not hold good as to Rot ; nor has the 

 exhaustion of the soil any influence upon this scourge. 

 Rot is found as much in vineyards planted on rich soil 

 as in those growing on poor land. The theory that 

 Rot is induced by Phylloxera (root lice) is entirely un- 

 founded. 



Atmospheric electricity, humidity and dryness, may 

 materially influence the spreading or stopping of the 

 disease. The nature of the soil and the exposure of 

 the vineyard may have something to do with the ap- 

 pearance of this malady, which especially rages on 

 low, damp places, with a cold, compact soil ; but rot 

 sometimes also commence'd during very dry weather, 

 and stopped, strangely enough, after the first rains of 

 the same season, and it was also sometimes found in 

 elevated positions, with a warm, dry soil. As a rule, 

 however, dry seasons and localities, blessed with a 

 purer atmosphere and superior drainage, are more 

 exempt from rot. 



The late M. B. BATEHAM (died August 5, 1880), 

 wrote in his last report to the Ohio Hort. Society, re- 

 ferring to an essay read at the Am. Pomol. Society 

 meeting, 1879, as follows : " As to Grape Rot, my ob- 

 servations of more than twenty years have led me to 

 the same conclusions, in the main, as those of my 

 friend, Mr. Bush. The difficulty is certainly not in 

 soil or cultivation, or in the vine, or in the effect of 



