FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 27 1 



tioii of very small, almost dot-like heaps of spores, so-called spermogonia, 

 with sweet tasting, sticky spores, so-called spermatia, about which nothing 

 further is known.) 



" At the end of the above mentioned processes, the fungus passes the 

 winter on the bark of the white pine, is carried in May to the leaves of the 

 Ribes plants, spreads from Ribes to Ribes and returns the same summer 

 to the white pine. Only in case of very thorough infection it causes the 

 leaves of the Ribes plants to dry up before their time without, however, 

 doing very serious injury to the plants. On the white pines it produces 

 swellings upon which the yellow blisters are formed. The swollen parts of 

 the bark afterward crack and split and die off at an early date. In conse- 

 quence hereof the parts of the young plants that are situated above the in- 

 fected bark, and the branches and upper parts of trees, dry up also. The 

 thinner the bark the sooner it is eaten through and destroyed by the fungus. 



' The damage caused by the fungus consists in the loss of young stock 

 in nurseries, gardens and newly planted forests, the drying up of branches 

 and general disfigurement of older trees, and finally the dying of whole trees 

 in parks and forests. 



' The epidemic character of the disease has been verified more than 

 once. Instances are known in which a very large percentage of the plants 

 in extensive plantings have been destroyed by the pine blister, causing a 

 large financial and still larger forest culture loss. The disease has led to 

 the cutting down of many trees in parks, it has killed a great many saplings 

 in forests, it renders entire beds of infected plants in nurseries worthless 

 for purposes of sale and has even induced many practical nurserymen to give 

 up the growing of white pine altogether." 



This disease has been the subject of much investigation and writing 

 abroad, but Klebahn is the most authoritative writer and Die Wirtwech- 

 selnden Rostpilze his best work. Horticultural Bulletin No. 2, " Emergency 

 Bulletin on the Blister Rust of Pine and the European Currant Rust " pre- 

 pared by Mr. George G. Atwood, has been issued by the State Department, 

 of Agriculture, Albany. Circular No. 38 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Washington, D. C, " The European Currant Rust on White Pine in America" 

 by Dr. Perley Spaulding, has also been published since the disease was dis- 

 covered in this country. 



