36 BULLETIN 828, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Georgia, and parts of Alabama for the purpose of obtaining further 

 information as to the southern distribution of bacterial wilt of cu- 

 curbits. The disease was found and pure cultures of Bacillus tra- 

 cheipliilus were obtained from all four States above named. Later 

 inoculations with these cultures into cucumbers in the greenhouse at 

 Washington, D. C, gave typical wilt infection in every case, thus 

 fully establishing the presence of the disease in these four Southern 

 States. Specifically, natural infection was found on cucurbits in the 

 field at West Raleigh (cucumber isolation R 316-a), Wilmington (cu- 

 cumber isolation R 318), Goldsboro (cucumber isolations R 317 and 

 En 160 and cantaloupe isolation En 161), and Garner, N. C; at Or- 

 angeburg and Bowman (cantaloupe isolation R 319), S. C; at Albany 

 (cucumber isolation R 320), at Athens (cucumber isolation R 325), 

 Atlanta (cucumber isolation R 323), and Rome (cucumber isolation 

 R 322), Ga. ; and at Anniston (cucumber isolation R 321 ), Ala. The 

 southernmost location visited was Albany, Ga., and here bacterial 

 wilt was found on both cucumbers and cantaloupes. The worst 

 damage in any of these cases occurred at Anniston, Ala., and Rome, 

 Ga., where in some cases as high as 25 per cent of the cucumber or 

 cantaloupe vines had succumbed. In the far southern or coastal lo- 

 calities wilt was doing very much less damage, but this may have 

 been partly due to the lateness of the cucumber season at the time 

 the observations were made. In some of these localities (e. g., 

 Charleston, S. C), the cucumber season was entirely past, so that 

 nothing but ripe fruit and dead vines were left. 



Reference to the map (fig. 6) will show all the localities in which 

 we have found this disease and from which we have obtained cultures, 

 as well as the States from which the disease has been reported by 

 other pathologists. Most of the reports of " specific localities" by 

 other pathologists are from unpublished notes of Mr. W. W. Gilbert, 

 of the Bureau of Plant Industry. During 1917 and 1918 bacterial 

 wilt of cucurbits was reported by the Plant-Disease Survey * not only 

 from portions of the United States where it had hitherto been known 

 to occur, but also from Alabama, Florida, Tennessee (Essary) , Texas 

 (J. J. T.), Kansas (Melchers), and probably also from California. 

 The disease was also reported as never having been seen in the State 



of Maine. 



CONTROL. 



Relative to the problem of control, at least four courses lie open — 

 (1) the finding or developing of resistant varieties, (2) spraying 

 the plants with a bactericide, (3) eliminating the beetles through poi- 

 sons or repellents, and (4) removing wilted plants as sources of spread 

 through the beetles. 



•U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Plant-Disease Survey, Plant-Disease 

 Bulletin, v. 1, no. 5, p. 92; no. 6, p. 101, 1917; v. 2, no. 4, p. 58; no. 10, p. 181, 1918. 



