454r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
Iu procuring cuttings take care to get them 
from good trees. There is much confusion in 
names. The Apple or Orange variety is gen¬ 
erally preferred. Rae’s seedling, scarce as yet, 
is a fine variety. 
Hative Grapes Under Glass. 
It has been generally believed that our native 
grapes, if they did not deteriorate, at least did 
not improve by growing them under glass. The 
results obtained by Mr. Saunders at the Experi¬ 
mental Gardens in Washington show that such 
is not the case. He has a small house with sev¬ 
eral native varieties, noticeable among which are 
the Iona and Adirondac, varieties which from 
local causes he is unable to fruit in the open 
air. The structure is of the simplest and cheap¬ 
est kind. Two board fences, one four feet and 
the other eight feet high, are set about six feet 
apart, and roofed over with the cheapest sort 
of sash. These figures are approximations, as 
we did not take measurements. The ends are 
boarded up, wide ventilators covered witli wire 
netting are made in the lower-wall, and an ar¬ 
rangement provided for ventilation at the top 
of the rear wall—if a board fence can be called 
a wall. The vines are planted outside, and 
brought into the house, where they are perfect¬ 
ly free from mildew and the attacks of insects 
and birds. Here was the Adirondac full of 
fruit, which had a most luscious sweetness, but 
was without character. The Iona made bunches 
probably more beautiful than Dr. Grant ever 
dreamed of, and of a flavor that would be hard 
to match among the best foreign varieties.' The 
Salem gave us a new idea in grapes, as it pos¬ 
sesses, grown in this way, a flavor peculiarly its 
own. Mr. Saunders informed us that tiic vines 
in the house had no care beyond what would 
have been given out of doors. This experiment 
is worthy the attention of those who live in high 
northern localities, as well as those who are in 
situations where grapes generally fail. A struc¬ 
ture of the kind we have described will require 
but a very small outlay, for "which the certainty 
of obtaining fruit will more than compensate. 
Mr. Saunders has arrived at the conclusion 
(with which many will not agree) that the arm 
system of training is a failure, but believes in 
renewing the vine from as near the root as 
possible, and fruiting from the upper buds. 
A Fungus on Fruit Trees. 
The many afflictions which come upon the 
fruit grower in the form of mildew, rust, blight, 
curl, etc., have from time to time been ascribed 
to electricity, atmospheric causes, (whatever 
they may be,) insects, and fungi. In the last 
two we have something tangible and capable of 
investigation. One field, that presented by the 
insects, is being thoroughly explored by many 
enthusiastic workers, while-the equally import¬ 
ant one, the fungi, is in this country''well-nigh 
neglected. The subject is one -of great difficulty, 
and needs the most patient labor. The fungi 
which prove injurious to our trees are exceed¬ 
ingly minute, and often manifest their presence 
only after the mischief is done. The popular 
idea of a fungus is that it is a toad-stool or mush¬ 
room. While all toad-stools are fungi, all fungi 
arc not toad-stools ; indeed, those which give us 
the most trouble bear no general resemblance 
to toad-stools. The toad-stools live upon decay- 
ing animal matters, and as they act in a measure 
as scavengers, they may be considered as" useful 
rather than otherwise, while the microscopic 
individuals which produce mildews, blights, 
rusts, etc., are so small that they can live within 
the tissues of a leaf, and are only visible to the 
eye when they break through to the surface - to 
bear seeds, as we may call the minute dust by 
which they are reproduced. Minute and ob¬ 
scure as they are, these vegetable forms have, 
like larger plants,.been classified and arranged 
in genera and species. To give an idea of one 
group of these small fungi, we present engrav¬ 
ings of one that has been found very trouble¬ 
some in the ap¬ 
ple orchards of 
East Tennessee. 
Upon the upper 
surfaces of the 
leaves are dis¬ 
colored spots, 
which upon the 
under side of 
the leaf appear 
as in figure 1, 
and look very 
much like some 
forms of skin 
disease in the 
human subject. 
There is an 
elevated, more 
or less regular, 
ring surround- 
„ ing a discolor- 
Flg. 1.— FUNGUS ON LEAF. , , TT 
ed spot. Upon 
magnifying these spots, that which appeared 
to the eye as a disease becomes a struc¬ 
ture of great beauty. The ring is made up of 
minute cylinders; the mouth of each is hand¬ 
somely fringed with long, transparent hairs. 
One of these is shown in figure 2 very much en¬ 
larged. Fungi presenting this general appear¬ 
ance are called “Cluster-cups.” Within the 
cups is a mass of minute brownish grains,which 
serve to reproduce the plant; these require a 
high magnifying power to see them distinctly. 
They are more or less angular from mutual 
pressure. The hairs which fringe the mouth of 
the cup are very sensitive to moisture, and curl 
up when wetted, and close the orifice. A curi¬ 
ous thing about some of these fungi is that they 
are dimorphous, i. e. come in more than one 
shape. The spores do not produce the same 
plant, but one so unlike it as not to appear at 
all related to it, but the spores of the second 
plant may produce plants like the first one, or 
it may take still another 'generation to do so. 
The early growth of these fungi takes place 
within the leaf, and these 
correspond to flowers, 
break up through the 
surface. There is much 
connected with this sub¬ 
ject which would be out 
of place in a popular 
description, and we 
have given only those 
points which are readily 
understood without introducing technical terms. 
The Cluster-cups above described were sent 
us by T. W. Sparkman, Clifton, Tenn., who 
says: “ It has been on some trees in this vicin¬ 
ity several years; it gradually gets worse, and 
the trees fail until they at length die. One of 
the worst trees is a wild Crab Apple, of which 
I send some specimens. There are a great 
many limbs attacked, and some of the apples.” 
At first we supposed it to be a new fungus, 
but find it was described in 1831, by that indus¬ 
trious botanist, the late L. D. de’Schweinitz, in 
the Transactions of the American Philosophical 
Fig. 2.— CLUSTER-CDP. 
Society, where he calls it JEddium Pyratum. 
The generic name is from the Greek, and means 
like pustules, and the specific one, Pyratum , is 
given because it grows upon Pyrus, the apple. 
Mr. S. asks-what .is the remedy. This is not so 
easy to give. • If well established in an orchard 
it is difficult to tell where to begin. The trees 
should be watched early in the season, and if 
only a few are affected we should cut them 
down, but this should be done before the fungus 
gets old enough to propagate itself. To know 
exactly what is best to do to prevent its spread 
one must study its appearance on the spot. 
Growing of the Potato from Cuttings. 
BY PETER HENDERSON, BERGEN CITY, N. J. 
About the first of last April, I stepped 
into the store of B. K. Bliss & Son, and in¬ 
nocently asked for 10 lbs. of the Early Rose 
Potato, which he had offered in his adver¬ 
tisements at the modest price of $2 per lb. Mr. 
B. informed me with all suavity that he could 
not let me have 10 lbs., but would (here he 
looked patronizingly) let me have half that 
j quantity. I had agreed to let a friend have 5 
lbs. of this famous Potato, and had intended 
the other 5 lbs. for my own planting, but being 
the possessor of only $10 worth (5 lbs.), I of 
course handed them over to my friend who had 
deputed me to buy. He in turn handed me 
Fig. 1.— POTATO CUTTING. 
back one of the precious tubers—weighing ex¬ 
actly 4 oz.,—which he requested me to “ experi¬ 
ment" with. How, whether it was the patron¬ 
izing manner of my illustrious rival, or whether 
it was the suspicion of a covert joke made by 
my friend when he handed me this small pota¬ 
to to “ experiment” with, I do not know, but 
an experiment was begun. On the 6th of April, 
I cut this 4oz. Potato in two pieces, so that each 
surface would present the greatest number of 
eyes. I then placed them on the soil of one of 
our green-house benches, keeping them entirely 
dry until the cut part had healed over, and the 
shoots began to start from the eyes—the tempera¬ 
ture of the green-liouse averaging perhaps 70 
degrees. As soon as the shoots got to be 4 or 5 
inches in length, they were cut off, as in figure 
1, about j of an inch from the surface of the po¬ 
tato, or far enough off so as not to injure the 
latent eyes that were yet to start-. Tlie cut¬ 
tings were then placed in the propagating 
house, and shaded and watered until rooted in 
the usual way, when they appeared as in figure 
2. Thevwmre then potted in 2-incli pots, in 
rich soil, and started to grow in the same tem- 
