730 The American Naturalist. [September, 
of that station, described “a disease of beets indentical with deep 
scab of potatoes,” which latter he attributes in another article 
in the same bulletin to “a bacterioid fungus-like affair having 
characteristics which would seem to ally it both to the fungi 
and to the bacteriacez.” Inasmuch as this beet disease has 
frequently been cited on Prof. Bolley’s authority as of bacterial 
origin, e.g., in the last edition of Frank’s (28) Krankheiten der 
Pflanzen, Bd. 2, p. 27, it is proper to mention it here, although 
the evidence for and against the bacterial nature of scab will be 
taken up seriatim only when we come to consider the bacterial 
diseases of the potato, to which the reader is referred. 
5. THE ROOT-BURN OF BEETS (1894). 
This disease should perhaps also be included. What little 
we know about its bacterial nature is derived from the brief 
account by Dr. L. Hiltner, in an address entitled, (29) Mittheil- 
ungen aus d. K. pflanzenphysiologischen Versuchsstation 
Tharand: Wie kann der Landwirt durch richtige Wahl, Pflege 
und Bestellung des Saatgutes des Krankheiten der Kultur- 
pflanzen einigermassen verbeugen ? Sachsische Landw. Zeitschrift 
1894, No. 18, pp. 207-209. 
Dr. Hiltner states that a disease called “ Wurzelbrand” has 
caused great injury in recent years in almost all beet-growing 
lands. This disease appears in an early stage of growth as a 
more or less extensive constriction at the junction of stem and 
root. Subsequently there is a browning and decay of the root 
which proceeds from the constricted portion, and usually ends 
in the death of the plant. In spite of numerous investigations 
the cause of this disease has not been satisfactorily determined. 
For a long time its symptoms were confused with the gnawings 
of a beetle, Atomaria linearis, but Hellriegel, and afterwards 
Wimmer, showed that the disease could be preventod by soak- 
ing the beet balls for twenty hours in one-half per cent. solution 
of carbolic acid, and on this ground ascribes the disease to a 
fungus, which was believed to pass over from the beet balls to 
the roots of the young seedlings. Hollrung, on the contrary, 
found a fungus in the diseased parts of only four out of sixteen 
roots examined for that purpose, and ascribed the disease to 
