
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 105 
Later, pure cultures from the Geneva material proved capable 
of producing disease in carnation plants, so that the fungus is 
very likely pathogenic. 
Moreover, on at least two occasions a Rhizoctonia has been 
- found producing damping-off among seedling beans in the green 
house. The disease is characterized by an ulceration of the stem 
at the surface of the soil and later prostration and death of the 
seedlings. 
ON THE BEET, 
(Beta vulgaris.) 
Our attention was first called to this disease by specimens of 
affected beets sent to us from Binghamton. <A few days after- 
wards the disease was discovered as a beet trouble of consider- 
able importance at Cattatonk, N. Y. This occurrence has been 
fully treated in Bulletin 163 of the Cornell Experiment Station, 
and at this time a summary of these notes will suffice. At Catta- 
tonk a three-acre field was attacked so severely that fully one- 
third of the crop was lost. Diseased plants are usually found in 
scattered areas throughout the field; but the fungus undoubtedly 
passes readily from plant to plant in the row and it has a tend- 
ency to spread rapidly. Cold weather or dry conditions quickly 
retard the spread of the trouble, and it is much more abundant 
where the soil is moist or the surface drainage bad. 
During hot weather the fungus secures a hold most readily at 
the bases of the leaves, perhaps because here there is moisture 
with the slightest rain or dew. Inoculation experiments also 
demonstrate that in these parts the disease “takes” well. The 
progress of the injury may be noted by the blackening of the 
leaf bases, and finally the wilting and prostration of the leaves 
themselves. The leaves do not, however, turn brown until after 
they have fallen. When the fungus has worked into the crown 
and root proper, a browning of those parts is evident, and finally 
deep cracks may appear, as shown in Plate VIII. 
The brown mycelial threads of the fungus among the diseased 
leaf bases are evident to the unaided eye, and after the root has 
become affected, a considerable mycelial weft may be found in 
