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come from the vine districts of tlie most different lands about a so-called 
mysterious disease to which single vines or larger parts of the vineyard 
have fallen victim. Without visible cause stocks here and there in 
vineyards which have stood for decades or centuries in good cultivation 
and sound growth begin to be sickly, their leaves become yellowish, 
then withered and drooping, their ends and edges growing brown; end 
shoots and other young shoots dry up, and, in many cases, the whole 
aspect gives exactly the impression that the vineyard has been attacked 
by the vine-louse. At other times there occurs in the vine generally 
only an extremely slight vegetative activity, as one may readily observe 
if he passes through the vineyard in May or in the early part of June. 
Then we notice that the stocks attacked by the ‘‘mysterious’ 7 disease 
have developed only a very few short shoots, and these bear scanty, 
small leaves, and a few short abnormal-looking small clusters. Finally, 
we also meet vines with foliage of a peculiar green, difficult to describe, 
and on which a marked shortening of the internodes is especially strik¬ 
ing, giving to the affected stock a bushy appearance which, in connec¬ 
tion with a not very considerable but yet clearly visible crinkling 
( Jcrauseluwg) of the leaves, has given to the affected stocks (in lower 
Austria) the common name ( u Kraupet v ) frizzles (?). 
A scrupulous examination of the roots shows that no vine-louse is at 
the bottom of this trouble; moreover no other insect, at least no abun¬ 
dantly appearing parasite, is present to which one might, perhaps, 
ascribe the sickening of the plants. Just as little can we find on the 
withering or dead leaves or shoots any fungous growth whose action 
has caused the sickening of the vine. It therefore happens in very numer¬ 
ous instances that the experts, practical or theoretical, who have been 
drawn thither stand helpless in face of the disease. It may be accepted 
as certain, moreover, that this disease is in no sense a new one, but that 
it has existed for a long time, although it probably formerly appeared 
much more rarely, and in consequence was overlooked and not con¬ 
sidered. For a long time this described appearance has been known to 
vine-growers in France and Switzerland, and given them much concern. 
There, also, they got pretty well on the track of the symptoms of the 
disease, although many of the views, assertions, and explanations there 
published lack all permanency and scientific basis. 
There is no doubt that the sole and only seat of the disease is to be 
looked for in the roots of the vine, and therein exactly, as well as in its 
extraordinary invisibility, is to be found the reason why the peculiar 
cause of the malady remained so long unknown. A fungus extremely 
invisible and easily overlooked, or more strictly a sterile fungous growth, 
is the cause of the sickness and death of the vine. If we examine 
minutely the roots of those vines which show some of the symptoms 
described in the beginning, we shall observe first of all a strikingly small 
number of fibrous and dependent roots, often, indeed, their entire ab¬ 
sence; and further, we shall see on those still present, as well as on the 
