124 
Giovanni Briosi, an Italian naturalist, after a thorough investiga¬ 
tion of the disease of the vine of Europe, says that where the galls 
produced by the mites are very numerous, the development of the 
fruit-buds is stopped. 
Landois, a German investigator, declares that the injuries to the 
vine from mites are quite as serious as those of the well-known 
Oidium tuckeri, a parasitic fungus which devastates vineyards. 
In our own country, injuries are also reported by florists and 
gardeners, and one of our great staples, cotton, is infested by a mite 
apparently belonging to the same genus as the injurious spinning 
mites of Europe. Of this mite, the former Entomologist to the 
Agricultural Department at Washington says, in one of his leports: 
“ Much injury is done to the cotton leaf by a minute red spider, j 
which presents very much the appearance of incipient rust, except 
that the leaf is of a more rust-brown in spots, instead of the bright 
yellow of the real rust. This red spider principally attacks the 
under side of the leaf, the spots caused by its punctures turning 
brown, and finally increasing until it is completely stung all o^er, 
and falls from the plant. This family of the mites ( Acari ) do much 
injury to vegetable life, as they are so extremely minute as to escape 
the notice of the superficial observer. Bed spiders also injure the 
rose, strawberry and vine, and seem to be very generally destructive 
to vegetation.” 
The Prairie Farmer for July, 1877, gives a paragraph relating to 
their injuries, which will not be out of place in this connection: 
“These [red spiders] are the most deadly enemies of our floral 
pets which we have to contend with. ’ * * These insects 
are so minute as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, and often | 
commit extensive ravages before the source of the mischief is dis¬ 
covered.” 
The rust of the orange has been discovered by Mr. Wm. H. Ash- 
mead, of Jacksonville, Florida, to be due to a mite which he names 
Phytoptus oleivoms. Of the work of this mite, Mr. Ashmead says: 
“The damage done is considerable, amounting to many thousand 
dollars in the course of a year. The rust is due mainly to the 
puncturing and exudations of the mites, millions of which are to be 
found on a single orange tree, frequently covering the oranges and 
leaves in the form of an impalpable yellowish dust,” 
