New Yorx AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT Station. 18% 
PRECIPITATION IN THE HUDSON VALLEY.— APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1899.2 




Total for 
Station. Ap-il. May. June July. Aug. Sept six mos. 
In. In. In: In. In. In. In. 
LO ee BeOS kb Seeoee Ge sO audit he 6.23 15.56 
S| LG ia eA D202 AVG UW B4aM hs 59. 02 2 6.49 17 Ot 
Poughkeepsie eet. CL ae 0.20 Lech) 74." 2h..66 1.683 4.99 15.44 
ReeeEPE Ont 2s... cee se Lezy Zrel” ° 4.85 5.78 1.90 6.39 22.95 
S10 Rea Zahk 2.36 4.73 6.65 0.89 5.03 A aes 


METHODS OF OBTAINING DATA. 
It is a favorite method with plant disease committees to send 
out circulars of inquiry to fruit growers asking for information 
concerning fruit diseases which have appeared during the season. 
We have done this and gotten considerable valuable information; 
but this method is applicable only to a few of the most common 
and best known diseases. In the first place the majority of fruit 
growers will pay no attention to such a circular. Out of a total 
of 250 circular letters enclosing self addressed envelopes for the 
reply we have had returned to us only 59. Secondly, the replies 
are often misleading. They are usually based not upon care- 
ful observations properly recorded, but upon loose general impres- 
sions. furthermore, the laity are able to identify accurately only 
a very few diseases. Frequently, two or more distinct diseases 
pass under one common name. Blight, leaf-spot, rust, fruit-rot and 
root-rot are examples of this. What is commonly called pear leaf- 
spot is caused by two quite different fungi, but there are very few 
persons not experts who know the difference between them. We 
have in New York, three fungous diseases and an insect trouble 
which are covered by the one common name, currant leaf-spot. 
Even so well known a disease as peach leaf curl is sometimes con- 
fused with the distortions caused by plant lice. 
2The records for April, May, and June, are taken from the U. S. Monthly 
Weather Review; those for July, August, and September, from the N. Y. Cli- 
mate and Crop Service monthly reports. 
3 The August record for Poughkeepsie is lacking; the figures here given are 
for Wappinger’s Falls, the nearest record station. 
