reality an unbroken whole or series of living creatures which it is impossible to separate in any such artificial way. That there is, in reality, no crucial difference between plants and animals, is strictly true, and our failure to appreciate this is due only to ignorance and mental incapacity to look at the series of living things as a connected whole.

I said at the beginning of my remarks that fungi were associated with an idea of mystery in the minds of many people who look upon their ways as ways past finding out; and I also said that their complexity was in reality simplicity. Of course they are by no means simple, and their proper study is one of the greatest difficulty, so that when I speak of simplicity, I do so merely when we view them in the light of a comparison with higher organisms, the vastly greater complexity of which is not popularly realized. I wish, however, again to dwell upon the fact that there is nothing really mysterious about their development apart from the mystery which is common to all organic life, and must always remain a mystery. Our knowledge of them as a whole is, on the contrary, full and accurate to a great extent, being imperfect only in details and special cases.

Fungi do not in any case constitute a mysterious influence, chemical, spiritual, or transcendental. Their spores, which come as near being transcendental as any part of them, are definite bodies, of definite size, shape, and weight, however minute, formed in vast numbers and performing the function of seeds which sow the disease, whatever it may be, from season to season. Though commonly invisible to the naked eye, they are as variable in size and shape as the seeds of trees or herbs. The corn smut spore, for instance, differs as much from the onion smut spore as a grain of corn differs from an onion seed. When, therefore, any one asks "What is the onion smut," for instance, "and where does it come from," there is no need that one should look mysterious and say that it is in the ground." Of course it is in the ground. So are pigweed, and purslain, and ragweed, and quickgrass in the ground; although in a well-cleaned field, freshly plowed in the spring, you could not find a vestige of any of them. When warm weather comes, however, you have pretty solid reasons for believing that they were in the ground even if invisible a month or two before. Now the smut of onions is in the ground in exactly the same way that pig weed and other weeds are in the

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ground. Its seeds are there, and from them and them only comes the influence which results in a crop of smutted onions.

In closing, I desire to say a few words in order to call attention to the new department of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, for which a laboratory has just been completed, of which I am to have the charge. It is the desire of the station to give some attention in the future, through this department, to the fungus diseases of crops, for the purpose of giving information concerning them to farmers in this State, as well as of experimenting upon them with a view to their mitigation, as far as the facili ties at the station will allow. As you may know, the station labors under the disadvantage of having no farm attached to it, and it will therefore, be necessary, in order to insure the usefulness of the department, that farmers shall aid in the work by sending inquiries and specimens whenever their attention is attracted by rusts, smuts, blights, or mildews which seem to be doing injury to crops. As concerns experiments for the prevention of such injuries, it will be well to state that absolutely nothing can be promised beforehand in the way of results. The subject is full of diffi culties, and although much is to be hoped from the increasing attention which is being given to it both in this country and in Europe, and the good results which have been obtained in some instances, it is well to bear in mind that many of these diseases are known to be practically incurable, and experiments in this direction must, in a large proportion of cases, lead to results of little practical benefit. The first thing to be done, however, is to ascer tain just what we have to deal with in the way of fungus diseases here in Connecticut, and for this purpose I hope to have the co-operation of farmers in the shape of inquiries and specimens. Specimens should, if possible, always accompany inquiries, since a microscopic examination is essential to the proper determination of the disease.

Vice-President DAY. This subject is nothing new. The probability is that fungi have existed since the creation of the world, and the attention of scientific men has been called to this subject more and more, and perhaps is likely to be called to it until the end of all time, unless we can find some means of counteracting the injuries caused by the existence of these

fungi. The public are now invited to ask any questions of the doctor relative to the matter of his address.

Mr. JENNINGS. I would inquire of the doctor, if, in his opinion, the onion fungus can be transmitted by the seed? Dr. THAXTER. There is no reason why the spores should not adhere to the seeds and be carried in that way. As a general thing the smut does not attack seed onions, I believe. Has not that been your experience?

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes, sir.

Dr. THAXTER. If they were carried by the seed, it would only be because the smut had got upon them from smutty onions grown in another field.

Mr. JENNINGS. We have never had any experience in our neighborhood of smut being transmitted through the seed, but rather through the ground, as the doctor has stated here to-day, but the question sometimes troubles people who are in want of seed whether these fungi may not be carried in the seed, and sometimes it operates against selling seed that is grown on smutty ground. We have never had any trouble, so far as I know, in seed being at all tainted by this fungus, but we often find onions which have been in a measure tainted by the fungus or by the smut.

Dr. THAXTER. I would say that there seems no great danger of introducing smut with sced. It is very improbable that the fungus should be in the seed itself. For that reason it would be very easy to treat the seed with some fungicide solution before using it, which would destroy any spores that might adhere to the outside.

QUESTION. What solution would you recommend?

Dr. THAXTER. Some of the sulphates or sulphides. Sulphate of copper or iron, for instance, are very good remedies. Mr. JENNINGS. You would treat it as you would wheat, I suppose?

Dr. THAXTER. Yes, treat it as you would wheat.

Mr. JEFFRIES. The doctor spoke about there being two fungi that were affecting the grape vine, one of which was practically incurable. Do I understand that that is what is familiarly known as the downy mildew?

Dr. THAXTER. I did not say that one was practically incurable.

Mr. JEFFRIES. That is the way I understood it and there are others who understood it so.

Dr. THAXTER. Excuse me; I said treatment was useless for one of them after it had appeared, while for the other, it was not useless. One is the Peronospora viticola; the other is the Uncinula spiralis, or surface mildew, as it is called, and that is very like what they call the "oïdium" in France, which is, perhaps, identical with it. The Peronospora viticola, or downy mildew, cannot be treated successfully after it appears; the treatment must be preventive, whereas the Uncinula spiralis, or surface mildew, may be treated.

Mr. JEFFRIES. Can you tell us anything about the black rot, which has been very common this summer and was in 1886.

Dr. THAXTER. That is a disease that is being treated now in France and elsewhere with some success. This is another

case where treatment of the disease, when once it has shown itself, appears to be entirely useless. The treatment must be preventive and not curative.

Mr. JEFFRIES. If it cannot be treated after it once shows itself, why is it that an application of lime, blue vitriol, and copperas, when it begins to show on the vine arrests it so that it shows no more?

Dr. THAXTER. Well, if a vineyard was very badly attacked I do not think that such an application would arrest it at all. The original disease when it starts in the summer is propagated from spores produced in late spring or early summer which are formed by the diseased parts of the vine that have lain over winter, and blow on the vine at a certain time in summer, say in June. The continuous application of fungicides might check its spreading over the vineyard after the summer spores had begun to form, but the destruction of the fungus threads would be impossible after they were once formed in the tissues of the vine, unless the part of the vine affected were also destroyed.

QUESTION. The spores live over the winter?

Dr. THAXTER. Yes, or rather the fungus threads live over winter, producing spores in spring and early summer.

Mr. JEFFRIES. Beginning about the center of Middlebury, a black looking rot, a sort of anthracnose, appeared that formed red spots on the leaves and showed itself on the fruit about the 17th of July. From there, it extended as far south as Southbury and below, and north to beyond Warren. It took from 10 to 90 per cent. by count of the bunches of fruit on the vine. The fruit showed a discoloration through the outer skin, and when a berry was cut open it was red next to the skin and down almost to the pulp. If the vines were treated with lime, blue vitriol, and copperas, in the proportion of five pounds of lime, one pound of blue vitriol, and four ounces of copperas to 25 or 30 gallons of water, there was not any more of it seen either on the green wood or on the fruit.

Dr. THAXTER. If that is your experience it does not coincide with previous experiments on this subject.

Mr. JEFFRIES. What I have given you is the fact.

Dr. THAXTER. You are 'absolutely sure that it was the application of the solution that cured them?

Mr. JEFERIES. Vines side by side were treated and left untreated. I have given you the result.

Dr. THAXTER. And your application was made after the fungus had appeared?

Mr. JEFFRIES. It was after the berries had begun to show discoloration.

Dr. THAXTER. Well, I do not know exactly what to say to that. I should like further experiments to prove both that your disease was black rot, and that your application cured it.

Mr. JEFFRIES. I have seen it so many times that I know what I say to-day. Vines that were not treated, continued to show the presence of the disease, while vines right by the side of the others which were treated ripened their fruit.

Dr. THAXTER. Do you mean to say that bunches that were affected ripened?