New YorkK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. tot 
ties. A year later Mr. Kinney” reported the same condition in 
Rhode Island. During the past three years Dr. Halsted has re- 
ported the Palmetto as showing less rust than other varieties in 
New Jersey. As already stated, in 1900, recently-set Palmetto 
plants were injured more by the spring stage of the rust than 
were the Conover’s Colossal plants of the same age in the same 
ficld. Similar conditions occurred on the fields of the Oneida 
Community Limited, in Madison County, New York. In one 
field containing several varieties, the Palmetto showed no ad- 
_ vantage over the others. The fields on Long Island have been 
watched every year since 1896 with the result that only slight, 
if any, differences in favor of the Palmetto were to be noticed, 
except that in some cases it did not succumb as early. Of course 
there is a bare possibility that the Long Island growers have 
a weak strain of the Palmetto variety. More frequently greater. 
differences would be seen in the same variety, apparently due 
to such factors as age of the bed, situation with regard to other 
fields and proximity of windbreaks. At present several other 
varieties are being advertised as “rust proof.” Undoubtedly 
seedling varieties will be found which will succumb to the attacks 
of the rust more slowly than others; but as the beds get older 
or a little mismanagement exhausts them they will finally get 
started downward and then go under. Hence at present we 
would recommend that no one put too much faith in “rust 
proof” varieties and expect them to resist the continued attacks 
of the rust without some effort on the part of the grower to check 
the spread of the disease. 
SOIL CONDITIONS. ' 
Mr. Kinney,” Botanist of the R. I. Station, says: “So far as 
observed neither the character of the land nor the kind of fer- 
tilizer used, nor the method of cultivation practised has had any 
noticeable influence upon the development of the asparagus rust.” 

Rural New Yorker, 56: 658, Oct. 9, 1897; also R. I. Agr. Exp. Sta. Rept. 
1897, p. 320. 
*Rural New Yorker, 56: 658, Oct. 9, 1897, 
