1 June, 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. | 513 
With regard to the efficacy of this means of preventing disease, in the 
case of the vine, the following is the testimony of the well-known viticultural 
authority, P. Gervais, in summarising the work of Millardet, Conderc, and 
de Grasset :—‘‘ In crosses between the American species and our European 
vine, a result has been produced that has exercised a most fortunate influence 
on the reconstruction of our vineyards. The resistance of the American 
parent, in certain cases relatively very rare, it is true, has passed entirely to 
the hybrid without losing any of its value by the mixture of the American 
blood with the blood of the non-resistant European vine, in such a manner 
that we have actually, for example, Carbenet-rupestris vines and dAramon- 
riparia vines, exactly as resistant as the better forms’ of ‘rupestris’ and 
‘riparia.’ ”—Transl.* 
Commenting upon the discovery of Millardet that has led to these 
results, the eminent German authority on Plant Pathology, Dr. K. F. von 
Tubeuf, has stated that it pointed to a method available in preventing many 
diseases amongst cultivated plants generally.+ 
The results obtained from hybridising American and Kuropean kinds of 
grape have been even further reaching than this. Certain vines, as is well 
known, are addicted to a disease named “ chlorosis,” that especially affects 
them when grown in soils rich in carbonate of lime; but there is one of | 
American origin, originally derived from ‘Texas, named Vitis Belundiert, that 
has not this drawback, being, according to the late Professor Viala, an ideal 
vine for caicareous soils. Experimenting with a hybrid raised by Millardet 
between this and the well-known European grape Chasselas, a grape very 
intolerant of calcareous soils, and therefore especially liable to this malady, 
P. Castel found that it could withstand without manifesting it a soil containing 
as much as GO per cent. of the lime-salt named. yf 
Moreover, a writer in the journal from which the above information has 
been derived, has stated that examples of an hybrid raised by Terras, in which 
L’Alicante (European grape) and /’7tis rupestris (American grape) have taken 
part, have proved at the hands of Henri Paul almost proof against Mildew 
(Peronospora) during a terrible year for disease of this nature, when vines of 
other varieties adjacent to them were affected. 
With regard to the application of this means for preventing disease in 
Queensland, it is well known to the writer that it was a subject that engaged 
the attention of the late Dr. Joseph Bancroft, who raised hybrid grape vines 
amongst other plants of analogous origin, in the number of which was a hybrid 
strawberry. : 
A hybrid strawberry also, the history of which is not known to the writer, 
has been raised by J. Pink, late director of our Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 
that, amongst other advantages, appears to be resistant to the attacks of the 
- leaf disease caused by Spherella fragrarie that is so baneful—both in New 
South Wales and Queensland—to almost all other varieties of this esteemed 
fruit (A. H. Benson). ae 
With regard to the apple it might be possible by cross-fertilisation between 
one or more of such varieties as the Irish Peach, Northern Spy, and Winter 
Majentin, that exhibit great resistance to the attacks of the Woolly Aphis or 
American Blight (Schizoneura lanigera), and apples that do not share with 
them this comparative immunity, to raise fruits that have all the good qualities 
that apples should present, but yet escape injury at the hands, or rather 
proboscis, of the insect named. ; 
Again, it might be found possible to effect a cross between such American 
plums as the Wild Goose or Newman on the one hand, and examples of the 
European or Japanese type on the other, and so procure fruits that, whilst 
* Prosper Gervais: ‘La reconstitution des terrain’s calcaires III, Résistance au 
Phylloxera.”—‘‘ Le Progress Agricole et _Viticole,” Tom. XXV., 1896. , 
+“ Dieses Beispiel zeigt uns den Weg, wie wir mancher Krankheit dadurch vorbeugen 
kénnen, dass wir widerstandfabige Arten suchen und zur Kultur weiter’ benutzen.”—Pflunzen- 
krankheiten, p. 98, 1895. q 
* “Progress Agricole,” Tom. XXV., p. 11,1896. 
