JOURNAL 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. VII. June, 1906. No. 8. 
A SERIOUS CHESTNUT DISEASE. 
A serious disease of our native chestnut, which threatens the 
extinction of this valuable tree in and about New York City, was 
brought to my attention last summer by Mr. H. W. Merkel, of 
the New York Zoological Park, and has been under investiga- 
tion here since that time. 
The immense number of dead and dying chestnut trees in the 
Zoological Park first caused Mr. Merkel to suspect the pres- 
ence of a destructive fungus. The ravages of this fungus among 
the young chestnut trees of the nursery were later observed by 
him and the trees sprayed with Bordeaux mixture, a treatment 
afterwards administered to the larger trees in the Zodlogical 
Park. The same disease has been found to exist among the 
chestnuts of New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, and it is prob- 
able that the death of the chestnut in the lowlands of Alabama 
and Georgia, as noted by Mohr and Small, is largely due to this 
agency. 
Inquiries from various sources regarding the disease and the 
hope that suggestions made now may be of service during the 
present season have led me to publish at this time a preliminary 
account of the disease, reserving a more technical and detailed 
description for a later paper. 
Pure cultures from affected chestnut sprouts in the Botanical 
Garden were made last autumn, and transferred to agar, bean 
stems, and sterilized chestnut twigs; on all of which the fungus 
grew rapidly and fruited abundantly. Living chestnut twigs 
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