New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 109 
dead sections of various sizes. If the point of attack is near the 
ground the whole cane dies; if higher up, only a part of it. When 
part of a cane dies while the remainder continues alive, the point 
of attack is to be sought at the boundary between the dead and 
living portions. Usually, the seat of the difficulty may be located 
by the color of the bark, which is somewhat different from that 
on the rest of the cane. For the most part it is lighter colored 
and smutty, with smoke-colored patches of exuded spores. In 
many cases numerous minute pimples, the pycnidia of the fungus, 
are visible. By cutting into the cane with a knife the matter may 
be decided at once. Where the cane is diseased the wood is 
Strongly discolored. A marked characteristic of cane blight is 
the brittleness of the cane at the point of attack. 
While it is common, both with black caps and red varieties, 
for the disease to be confined to one or more definite areas of 
infection on the cane, there are also many instances in which the 
disease pervades a large portion of the cane before death occurs. 
In such cases it is common for the affected wood to crack and 
the bark to peel off, particularly on the lower portion of the cane. 
Fruiting canes affected with cane blight may die at any time. 
Almost as soon as the leaves unfold in the spring branches com- 
mence to die. As the season advances the disease increases in 
virulence and reaches the maximum during the ripening of the 
fruit. Canes loaded with ripening fruit suddenly wilt, either 
wholly or in part, and dry up. The disease does not spread from 
an initial center, but canes die here and there all through the 
plantation. Thrifty, well-cared-for plantations suffer as well as 
neglected ones. 
So far as observed, only the canes are affected. The disease 
certainly does not attack the leaves, and the fact that new canes 
in badly diseased plantations make as good a growth as those 
in healthy plantations indicates that the roots are not affected. 
In August and September the new canes of red raspberries 
often show bluish-black or brown areas from two to four inches 
in length and extending nearly or quite around the cane. These 
discolored areas are very conspicuous, and at one time were mis- 
taken for the early stage of cane blight. Probably they have 
nothing to do with cane blight. The real cause of the discolora- 
