CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE. 377 
chestnuts of European descent, and among these some resist 
the blight pretty well; and some of the American progeny, 
like the Hannum and Ridgely, seem to resist well enough, so 
that I am grafting these upon many different sprouts.” 
As interest became aroused, inquiries have been frequently 
made if other trees than the chestnut, especially oaks, were 
not attacked by this fungus. For a long time its occurrence 
was not reported on any other host than Castanea. Even as 
late as April, 1912, Metcalf (35, p. 223) published the following: 
“So far as is now known, the bark disease is limited to the 
members of the genus Castanea. The American chestnut, the 
chinquapin, and the cultivated varieties of the European chest- 
nut, are all readily subject to the disease. Only the Japanese 
and some other East Asian varieties appear to have any 
resistance.” 
Fulton seems to have been the first to report the chestnut 
blight on oak, having exhibited cultures in December, 1911, at 
the Washington meeting of the American Phytopathological 
Society. In his Harrisburg paper (24, p. 53) he reports finding 
a fungus on white and black oak in Pennsylvania, and says 
concerning it: “While it is desirable to carry on further cross 
inoculation experiments, it seems reasonable to suppose in the 
light of present evidence that Diaporthe parasitica may, under 
unusual circumstances, establish itself saprophytically on por- 
tions of trees outside the genus Castanea, if these portions are 
already dead. We have found no evidence that the fungus 
produces in any sense a disease of such trees as the oak.” 
The writer and Mr. Filley first found the chestnut blight on 
oak in October, 1912, at Middlebury, Conn., in a badly diseased 
chestnut grove on the Whittemore estate. Previous search for 
several years had failed to show it on any of the various species 
of oak examined. At this place the fungus occurred rather 
inconspicuously, as. follows: (1) On an exposed living root 
of Quercus alba that had been injured in some way; (2) On 
cut surface of wood of a live stump of Q. rubra from which 
young sprouts were growing; (3) On the dead bark and dead 
stub of a twig on a recently cut stump of Q. rubra. Also, in 
November of the same year, Mr. Walden, of the entomological 
department, brought to the writer specimens of white oak from 
Greenwich, Conn., that had been killed by drought, on which 
this fungus occurred. 
