48 BULLETIN 121, tr. S. DEPARTMENT OF' AGBICULTTJEE. 



layer of the seed. After this, the seed is thoroughly washed in a 

 screen and dried in flats in the open or in a drying room. In the case 

 of fermentation in pits, the seed may be dried without washing. By 

 some growers, the fermentation process is now omitted. 



During the process of crushing and separating, the exterior of the 

 rind becomes thoroughly drenched with the abundant juice from the 

 crushed fruits, and it is inevitable that the spores should be washed 

 from the fruit lesions into the juice which goes through with the seed. 

 Conditions at the Ohio farm were very interesting in this respect. A 

 considerable percentage of the fruits being ground bore anthracnose 

 lesions, and, although the latter were not sporulating to any great 

 extent, there appeared to be plenty of opportunity for wholesale con- 

 tamination of the seed by the spores of the fungus. Similar condi- 

 tions prevailed in the Michigan seed field visited in 1917, where a much 

 larger percentage of the seed fruits was diseased. 



In an attempt to prove that anthracnose spores were present in the 

 seed and juice as it issued from the grinder and in the liquid in fer- 

 menting barrels filled the same morning, cultural tests were made at 

 the Ohio farm. Test-tube water blanks were used in place of dilu- 

 tion flasks and sterile calibrated pipette droppers*were used in place 

 of pipettes. Two series of six plates each were poured, using water 

 agar plus 2 per cent dextrose. No anthracnose colonies appeared; 

 The heavy seeding of bacterial and fungous qolonies in these plates 

 showed, however, that the liquid tested contained an abundant and 

 varied flora. 



On October 6, 1917, a number of diseased seed cucumbers, one of 

 which is shown in Plate VIII, were collected at a seed farm and 

 brought to the laboratory, where the seeds were removed by hand 

 the next day. To simulate as closely as possible the conditions in 

 the commercial operation, the seeds, juice, and rinds were mixed 

 together in a jar and then the larger rind fragments were removed. 

 The material in the jar was allowed to ferment for two days in the 

 laboratory. The gas produced yielded a froth which buoyed up 

 numerous rind fragments. In such diseased fragments thus caught 

 and held at the surface the fungus was found to be producing new 

 acervuli and sporulating in abundance, thus greatly increasing the 

 amount of infective material in the liquid. 



The period of fermentation might allow the spores to germinate, 

 but it is probable that the anaerobic conditions would prevent this. 

 In case germination did occur on the wet seed, adherent appressoria 

 would quite likely result. It is not considered at all likely that the 

 biological action during this short period of fermentation would kill 

 the spores. The washing process would remove by no means all of 

 the spores from the seed, since the surface of the latter is not smooth 

 but is covered- with cellulose hairs. During the process of drying in 



