New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 155 
INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS WITH THE FUNGUS.” 
Inoculation experiments with pure cultures of the Sporotrichum 
have given varying results. Thirteen different experiments were 
made, the total number of inoculated buds being 107 and the num- 
ber of checks 18. Four of the inoculated buds and one of the 
checks were accidentally destroyed. None of the checks showed 
any browning of the tissue or other ill effects from the treatment 
they received. Of the 103 inoculated buds which were carried 
through to the end of the experiment 36 were ruined by the Spo- 
rotrichum, 21 others showed slight injury, while the remaining 46 
were scarcely, if at all, affected by the inoculation. That is to say, 
only about 35 per ct. of the inoculations can be regarded as posi- 
tively successful. The many failures show that the fungus is not 
an aggressive parasite or else the conditions surrounding the ex- 
periments were in some way decidedly unfavorable to the disease. 
The cultures used for inoculation were from three or four different 
sources and all isolated within six months of the time of using them. 
They were grown on plugs of sugar beet from 7 to 19 days and 
invariably examined before using to make sure that they were 
sporulating freely. In most cases, the inoculations were made 
through the side of the bud by the following method: By means 
of a sterile awl a small opening was made in the calyx. Through 
this opening a bit of the fungus from a pure culture was introduced 
into the interior of the bud in one of two ways: (1) A fragment 
of mycelium bearing spores was poked in with a strong platinum 
needle; or (2) by means of a pipette spore-laden water was forced 
in until drops of it exuded from the tip of the bud. In experiments 
in which the first method was used the check buds were simply punc- 
tured with the awl, but when the second method was used sterile 
water was forced through the punctures into the check buds. Sev- 
eral fully expanded blooms were inoculated with spore-laden water 
through a pipette inserted into the center of the bloom from the 
top. Some of the inoculations were made in the open greenhouse; 
others in a large glass inoculation chamber in which the air was 
saturated with moisture. 
Most of the inoculations were made on Boston Market, a white 
variety. It may be that this variety is partially resistant to the 
* By F. C. Stewart. 
