218 CULTURE O F T II E G U APE. 



trees, and your olive-trees, increased, the palmer-worm 

 destroyed them." And again (Hag. ii. 17): "I smote 

 you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, in all 

 the labors of your hands." Theophrastus, in his " History 

 of Plants," written three hundred and twenty years before 

 Christ, treats very distinctly of mildew, and mentions the 

 plants most subject to its attack. He states that the crops 

 on high-lying lands were seldom attacked by this disease, 

 but that the hollows surrounded by hills, where winds 

 could not get at the crops, were frequently infected. 

 This disease is often alluded to by subsequent ancient 

 writers, and is generally connected with the dog-star and 

 with foggy weather. The Romans even regarded the mist 

 as a cloud of mildew; and they recommended fumiga- 

 tions with " stinking, pungent smokes," at such times as 

 the mists should appear in the air. The credit of discov- 

 ering the true nature of mildew belongs to Felice Fon- 

 tana, who published a work, entitled " Osservatione sopra 

 la Ruggine del Geano," at Lucca, in the year 1767, in 

 which he declares it to be a fungus. Since this time, 

 observations with the microscope have been made by 

 botanists; and it is determined that there are distinct 

 species of fungus infesting different plants. These minute 

 parasitic plants, or fungi, seem to have a perfect vegeta- 



