360 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, IQI2. 
After a preliminary paper in the Journal of the New York 
Botanical Garden (45), published in June, 1906, he described 
in Torreya (47), in September of the same year, the specific 
fungus responsible for the trouble, a species new to science 
which he called Diaporthe parasitica. 
Previous to this outbreak there is no record, so far as the 
writer knows, of a disease of chestnuts in this country, or else- 
where, that can be surely attributed to the same cause, though 
there have been troubles of chestnuts in the Southern States 
that may or may not have been due to it. These will be 
discussed more fully later. Since the disease has been called 
to the attention of the public, however, there are a number of 
persons who have reported that they believe that they have 
seen this or a very similar trouble previous to 1904. 
For example, Metcalf and Collins (36, p. 45) say: “No 
earlier observation than this is recorded, but it is evident that 
the disease, which would of necessity have made slow advance 
at first, must have been in this general locality for a number 
of years in order to have gained such a foothold by 1904.” 
And further on (p. 46) they add: “Observations by the junior 
writer indicate that this disease may have been present in an 
orchard in Bedford County, Va., as early as 1903, and that in 
Lancaster County, Pa., it was probably present as early as 
1905.” 
Dr. Britton of this Station informs the writer that as far 
back as 1889 he knew of a seedling chestnut tree on a farm 
near Keene, N. H., that suddenly, during the summer, developed 
a progressive canker trouble that now seems to him to have 
been the chestnut blight. 
Professor Davis, in the discussion at the Pennsylvania 
Chestnut Blight Conference at Harrisburg (54, p. 102), said: 
“T will say that I think I saw the blight on Long Island in 
1897 or 1898. * * * That was in Cold Spring Harbor, in 
Huntington, especially back of Huntington, through sthe hills 
around there. So I think it was in 1898 well established in 
those localities.’ Mr. Child, of Putnam, Conn., at this same 
conference (54, p. 107) also said: .“I know two men about 
sixty years of age who state that they are positive that they 
saw this blight twenty years ago, or something that looked the 
same as is shown in the blight to-day.” 
