ese parasite. It was
found last summer by the agricultural explorer, Mr. Myers, but the
fungus was studied out by Dr. Shear.

The three great American parasites of our native grapes are the black
rot, the downy mildew and the Phylloxera, an insect pest, and they
caused a great amount of study and work and investigation and great
expense when they were introduced into France and South Germany and
Italian vineyards, and were fought out only by what might be considered
a magnificent effort on the part of the European governments, especially
France. On our native wild grapes those diseases are almost trivial, and
the wild seedlings in the woods are practically immune, but when we
cultivate them and select the tenderer varieties, the black rot is
pretty bad, especially on the Concord, and particularly when that is
hybridized with grapes of European blood. Nevertheless, we have
cultivated them in order to get the large juicy fruits. There are many
more examples of this sort.

Now about the cultivated nuts. I wish I could tell you how much I think
of the native nuts. I grew up in Northern Illinois and could go out on a
day like this and gather two or three bushels of hickory nuts. How I
enjoyed the black walnut, especially when it was just shriveled so it
would leave the shell--it got rather too rich when it was dried and
stale in the winter time--but how delicious it was when just wilted!
Also there was the butternut and the wild hazelnut. I used to take a
one-horse wagon into the woods on a Saturday and gather enough hazelnuts
in the shucks to fill it; then we had hazelnuts all winter. So I am in
full sympathy with the Northern Nut Growers Association and I would
like to see those nuts grown, if not wild in the woods, at least in
cultivation.

There might be a few things of interest to you about the wild hickory
nut. According to Farlow's Index of North American fungi of twenty-five
years ago, there have been thirty-seven species of fungi collected on
that tree. Probably there are twice that number as a matter of fact, but
mycologists have collected, described and named thirty-seven species on
the _Hickoria ovata_, the plain shagbark, and the other hickories have
similar numbers. The pecan has only three named species in Farlow's
Index, but Mr. Rand has got together three times as many I think--I am
not sure of the number.

Of the pecan diseases, the pecan scab is probably the most conspicuous
fungus trouble. The pecan