New Yoru AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT SYraTION. — 1385 
down the hill on the new bed the plants were naked and gray- 
black with Darluca and the winter stage of the rust. As in all 
the other fields both stages of the rust were found. The peculiar 
belts of brown plants with little foliage, yellowish-green plants 
with some foliage, and last the green plants showing very little 
rust, all following the contour of the hill and not limited to the 
new bed, were very marked. If these belts had been limited to 
the new bed and to only a small portion of the old bed adjoining, 
all the conditions might be accounted for by assuming that the 
rust had started early in June on the new bed and had gradually 
spread to the older bed after the cutting season was over. If 
the new bed had been so situated that prevailing winds could 
carry the rust to the older portion of the field, the conditions 
found could have been considered the result of the rust starting 
eurly on the new bed and spreading in curves by aid of the winds. 
As a matter of fact the rows run east and west, and the contour 
lines of the hill extend from south to north northwest, the slope 
being east northeast. The new bed is on the east end of the field. 
The slightly rusted portion of the field was on the crest of the 
knoll. Undoubtedly the rust had attacked the new bed early in 
the season, but this would not account for the rust belts follow- 
ing the contour of the hill and infecting the old bed on the north 
side. It was said that the rust affected the field in the same man- 
ner the previous year. 
As far as known there are no tests showing that it is abso- 
lutely essential for the spores of the summer stage of the rust 
to have a nidus of water in which to germinate under natural 
conditions. It is an assumed fact among pathologists that the 
spores of all kinds of fungi, including the rusts, require drops 
of water in which to germinate. Water certainly is required to 
gcrminate them under artificial conditions. If this is a correct 
assumption, then the fact that an abundance of moisture had 
been furnished for the germination of the rust spores in the form 
of dewdrops, might account for some of the conditions found in 
the above field. Now it is often observed that low lands and 
those adjoining streams. get heavier dews than does the high 
