22 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JULY 
this sort. The uredo and teleuto stages follow in order as the season 
progresses, and while the simultaneous occurrence of these forms is 
by no means unknown, it is usual, as with most similar rusts, for 
the uredo stage to develop almost exclusively during the summer, 
when the plants are most active, followed by a pure teleuto growth 
upon the dead stalks in fall. The latter stage in all the Eupuccinia 
group is regarded, therefore, as typically the fall rust, and as a form 
which develops to any extent only in the latter part of the season as 
a result of the approach of winter and the death of the host-plant. 
The relation of the development of the asparagus rust to soil and 
atmospheric moisture has received some attention in previous publi- 
cations. Stone and Smith’ found a decided difference in the preva- 
lence of the disease according to the moisture-retaining properties 
of the soil, the trouble being worse upon the drier soils. So marked 
was this difference in Massachusetts that in regions equally exposed 
to infection, and in fact equally affected with the teleuto stage in the 
fall, the beds upon heavier, moist soils did not show, and have never 
shown, any rust previous to September (when the plants mature in 
that climate); while those upon light dry soils became badly affected 
with the uredo stage early in the season. The difference not only 
appeared in different sections of the state in the same season, but 
also in the whole state in different seasons, the amount of rust in the 
most affected localities varying as the season was wet or dry, being 
least in the wet seasons. Although not universally accepted at first, 
this idea has received much support from subsequent experience 
over practically the whole country. 
n most of the large asparagus regions of the eastern states but 
little difference exists between the soils of the various plantations, 
the characteristic soil being of a light, sandy, dry nature. In the 
first violent epidemic of the rust everything was affected in such sec- 
tions, and differences in soil, as well as in varieties of asparagus and 
other factors now recognized by all, were overlooked or imperceptible. 
A tour of these districts at present, however, will convince the most 
skeptical that of the original beds those few which now remain are 
almost entirely upon the heavier soils, and of the new beds the most 
= * Bulletin 61, and Ann. Reports 12, 14, 15, Hatch Exper. Station of Mass. Agric. 
ollege. 
eo es te 
