6 BULLETIN 727, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
not identical. Traverso (52) reported a severe attack of anthracnose 
near Chioggia, Italy, in 1913, which lowered the value of a large part 
of the crop. 
Working at the University of Wisconsin in 1913 and 1914, Carsner1 
found that anthracnose caused damping-off of cucumber and musk- 
melon seedlings when the seed was immersed in a spore suspension 
before planting. He secured damping-off due to anthracnose in cases 
where seed was planted in soil collected from diseased fields four 
months previously, and likewise in sterilized soil with which were 
incorporated dry, chopped, diseased vines collected five months before. 
In the case of seeds dipped in a spore suspension, he found that for- 
maldehyde treatment prevented subsequent seedling infection. ; 
In 1915 Eriksson (16, p. 121-125) reported at length on certain 
difficulties with anthracnose on cucumbers and melons in Sweden. 
The occurrence of the disease from 1910 to 1913 among garden and 
greenhouse cucumbers is recorded. In one locality it seems to have 
caused a total loss of the greenhouse crops in 1912 and 1913 and to 
have discouraged cucumber and melon culture. Very convincing 
evidence is presented to show that the disease was introduced with 
seed of a much-prized Rockford variety from England, and Eriks- 
son makes the very important suggestion that clean seed be used. 
Taubenhaus (51) in 1916 reported the serious prevalence of the 
disease in Delaware on watermelons, cucumbers, cantaloupes, citrons, 
and cultivated gourds, and he reports cross inoculations proving the 
identity of the fungus on all of these hosts. | 
From this review of the history of the disease it is seen that much 
of the earlier work is naturally of a purely mycological nature, 
although some of the early writers appreciated fully the serious 
nature of anthracnose. Later, with the adoption of the phyto- 
pathological point of view, interest centered about the pathogenic 
characteristics of the fungus and the control of the disease. 
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. 
Anthracnose of cucurbits apparently occurs wherever the hosts 
are grown in a humid climate. This includes Europe and the United 
States east of the Rocky Mountains. Except for a report from 
Arizona in 1912 and another from Colorado in 1917 anthracnose 
has not been reported from the arid regions of the West. 
The following data relative to the occurrence and distribution 
of the disease in this country since 1908 were obtained from the 
records of the Office of the Plant Disease Survey of the United States 
Department of Agriculture. The blanks in the earlier records are no 
doubt due in part to incomplete reports. (Table I.) 
1Carsner, E. Studies upon cucumber diseases. MS. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1914. (Not 
published. ) 
