New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT Station. 201 
investigating a currant cane blight having the same symptoms, in 
Western New York. Upon the appearance of his bulletin”? 
which it was stated that Nectria cinnabarina Tode was the cause 
of the disease, we concluded that the sterile fungus observed by 
Fairchild and by us was probably only a saprophyte; but our 
observations during the past season have convinced us that it is 
really an active parasite. ‘The disease occurs to a greater or less 
extent throughout the entire Hudson Valley. In many planta- 
tions it is very destructive. We have cut open and examined 
several hundred, perhaps as many as a thousand, of the affected 
canes, and almost invariably found the sterile fungus in the pith 
and under the bark. Its presence can generally be determined 
with the unaided eye and nearly always with the aid of a good 
hand lens. In a very few cases, perhaps half a dozen, we have 
found borers; but in no case have we found Nectria cinnabarina 
either in its perithecial or conidial stage. The currant cane blight 
occurring in the Hudson Valley is not caused by Nectria cinna- 
barina but by a sterile fungus.” 
When a cane of the previous season’s growth first shows ditty 
of the leaves it appears normal externally. But on splitting an 
affected stem there will usually be found a place near the base of 
the affected portion, where the bark is dead and the wood and 
pith dead and discolored for an inch or more. The presence of 
the fungus is manifested by delicate cobwebby patches of hyphee 
in the pith. This is the seat of the trouble, and from it as a center 
the fungus spreads both ways; upward, so as to frequently 
occupy the whole wilted branch, and downward so as to kill suc- 
cessively the lower branches of the cane. The disease seems to 
strangle the canes near the point of infection, killing the portion 
beyond by cutting off the supply of sap. : 
In canes of the present season’s growth the fungus spreads 
20 A Disease of Current Canes. Cornell Exp. Sta. Bul. 125. F. 1897. 
21 Exact proof by inoculation experiments is lacking. But the large number 
of cases in which the sterile fungus has been found associated with the dis- 
ease is considered sufficient proof for this statement. 
