Art. 5. "Independently of the formalities prescribed by the Royal Decree mentioned in the preceding article, the exportation and importation of the plants referred to in Art. 3 are regulated by the following provisions. §3. Importation. Art. 6. "The importation of horticultural or nursery plants attacked by insects or plants imjurious to crops is forbidden. Art. 7. "The Minister may order the return of such plants, or restrict their importation to certain Customs Offices named by him with the common consent of the Minister of Finance. Art. 8. In certain serious cases, he may forbid the entry of certain species or varieties of the said plants coming from the countries he names." "In default of taking this measure, he can order the production of certificates to the effect that the plants presented for import come from cultivations free from injurious insects or plants, and that the plants sent are free from such insects or plants." "The examination of the plants sent can take place at the frontier, or on arrival. Art. 9. "In cases where the plants dispatched to the interior of the country are recognized as being attacked by injurious insects or plants, the Minister has the right to decree their destruction at the cost of the importer, who is not entitled to any indemnity." § 4. Exportation. Art. 10. "No horticultural or nursery plants may be sent to foreign countries, unless they have been certified as entirely free from injurious plants and insects by the Inspection Service organized according to Art. I. Art. II. The grower, whatever his status, of such a cultivation of plants as is mentioned in Art. 3, where the special Inspection Service testifies to the presence of an insect or plant, which it recognizes as harmful to plantations, is held responsible for its destruction. "Until the destruction of the injurious insect or plant is effected, the Inspector of the Special Service is required to refuse the phytopathological inspection certificate mentioned in Arts. 14 and 15. Art. 12. All plants destined for the United States, or for any other country determined by the Minister, have, before exportation, to be provided with a certificate to the effect that they come from sources free from plants and insects injurious to cultivations." "Such goods as do not comply with this regulation, cannot be admitted for transport". "When the plants sent have not all been grown by the sender, the latter is required, under penalty of the application of Art. 17, to assure himself in every case that the other plants also come from sources which have also been certified by the special Service as free from injurious plants and insects. To this end, the sender has a right to demand the production of the inspection certificate which the grower has received". Art. 13. —“In special cases, the Service Inspector can, on condition that the persons interested conform to bis instructions, give permission to send plants exported directly from abroad together with the products of "The Minister fixes the time for which this certificate is valid ". Art 15. "The inspection certificate can be obtained gratuitously by every grower of horticultural plants on application to the Inspector of the Special Service and on observing the conditions laid down by the Minister". Art. 16. — “At certain times, which are fixed by ministerial decree, the Inspector of the Special Service, aided by assistant experts, inspects the cultivations of the persons making the declarations and carries out the necessary investigations ". "When the cultivations can be considered free from injurious plants and insects, the Inspector of the Special Service grants the inspection certificate". "The latter is refused, when, among the inspected places, plants are found attacked by injurious insects or plants ". Art. 17. "The inspection certificate is refused, or withdrawn, in the case of the non-observance of part 3 of article 12, or when the cultivator of the cultivations to be inspected only determines these partially, or does not render the Special Service Inspector the necessary assistance to enable him to carry out the requisite investigations". "Such refusals are announced to the Minister by the Inspector of the Special Service within three days. The same procedure is observed in the case of a refusal of the certificate based on part 3 of the preceding article ". The last § deals with the research of the infringements of the regulations and the penalties incurred by non-compliance. A ministerial decree of Nov. 9, 1912, regulates the inspection of horticultural and nursery cultivations; to this is appended a circular, addressed to the Governors of the Provinces, dealing with the above decrees. DISEASES NOT DUE TO PARASITES 67-On the Effect of Falls of Temperature on Vines, in Connection with "Bramble-leaf (I). PETRI, L. Ricerche sulle cause dei deperimenti delle viti in Sicilia. I. Contributo allo studio dell'azione degli abbassamenti di temperatura sulle viti in rapporto all'« arricciamento », 210 pp., 97 figs. Roma, 1912. According to the writer certain solid endocellular fibres are constantly found in the tissues of all those vines in Sicily or on the main (1) See also No. 1349, B. Sept. 1912. (Ed.). DISEASES NOT DUE TO PARA SITES AND OF UNKNOWN ORI GIN. FUNGI land which are sickly in consequence of the attacks of " bramble-leaf ” ΟΙ roncet". These fibres are found both in American and European stocks, and in the grafted as well as in the ungrafted vines, and mostly in the above ground parts of the plants. These formations are identical with those already well known in the wood of conifers (" Balken" of Sanio). These endocellular fibres are not formed in vines affected by other forms of distortion. Their formation precedes the exterior manifestations of bramble-leaf, and similarly to these, they are transmitted by cuttings; their formation is caused by falls of temperature during the growth of the plant. The distortion of the shoots produced directly by late frosts is not the same, morphologically or genetically, as that produced by brambleleaf. The action of cold, necessary for the formation of these fibres, does not produce directly distortion of the shoots. The sensibility of the cambium and of the other tissues to this particular action of the cold increases after they have once been injured. The process of the formation of the fibres may be considered as the consequence of the deviation of a normal process which takes place during mitosis under the influence of the fall in temperature. This perturbation lasts, and is transmitted also to the cells which originate from those first injured, independently of a repetition of the cold. Those conditions of structure of the soil and of aspect of the vineyard which usually favour the ordinary ill effects of cold, and which have been found to further the appearance of bramble-leaf, may be considered as predisposing and perhaps complementary factors in the special action of cold in forming the endocellular fibres. It is very probable that the manifestations of bramble-leaf and the endocellular fibres are effects of one and the same cause, but hitherto this has not been demonstrated experimentally. The practical measures suggested by the facts which have been ascertained by the writer's researches concern principally the necessity of establishing experimental nurseries with a view to finding the means of protecting the mother plants from the injurious effects of the coastal climate. 68 BACTERIAL AND FUNGOID DISEASES On the Weather Conditions that favour the Breaking out of Vine- SAVOLY, F. Ueber die Lebensansprüche der Peronospora der Rebe an die Witterung. In 1907 Prof. Gy. v. Istovánffi, Director of the Ampelological Station of Budapest, being engaged in research on the life history of the vine mildew, decided to study more closely the very important influence that the weather has upon this fungus. What was contemplated was not a laboratory experiment, nor the determination of the special conditions of a limited wine-growing district; but an experiment on a grand scale which should afford a sound arithmetical basis to the relation existing between the attacks of mildew and the course of the seasons in the whole of Hungary, taking into consideration the great diversity of conditions prevailing in the various parts of the country. The vine thrives well, at suitable altitudes, in the whole of the kingdom, the general configuration of which may be likened to that of a huge basin, the bottom of which is formed by the extensive Alföld, a plain situated at from 80 to 100 metres (270 to 330 feet) above sea level, and the sides by the chain of the Carpathians with the gentle slopes of its foot hills. Whilst the isohyetose lines, both the yearly ones and those covering longer periods, are situated concentrically round the Alföld, which is the relatively driest part, the isotherms run almost parallel to the parallels of latitude. A future publication will contain all the details of the experiment, of the methods employed and of the results obtained; this paper is only a preliminary communication. Beginning with the year 1907, all the data given by the agricultural press of the country during the preceding ten years on the relation between the outbreaks of mildew and the weather were collected and examined. The result was a confirmation of the well known fact that the disease prevails and is especially severe in wet years. Another observation of greater importance than the above general result was the recognition of the individual behaviour of some regions, distinguished by special meteorological conditions, towards mildew. As meteorological data, those supplied by the Government stations were utilised; the data on the mildew invasions were collected with the assistance of thousands of farmers living in all parts of Hungary, who were requested to forward to the Royal Ampelological Station suspected or diseased parts of vines on the very first suspicion or appearance of mildew. The material thus collected was examined at the Station. Stress was laid upon collecting data referring to the first outbreaks of the disease, inasmuch as only these have any value in establishing a connection between mildew aud the course of the weather. In order to make sure of the exactness of the data collected, the administrative district was considered as the unit of area in respect to the outbreak of the disease, and it was held to be infected from the date on which the first notice of the disease was sent in. The confirmation of the intelligence was given by the subsequent notices which followed each other, from the same district. On the other hand, the probability that one information really gives notice of the first appearance of the disease diminishes as summer wears on; and the notices act as a check upon each other when in successive years those from neighbouring districts come in in the same order. In such cases the belief is justified that certain external conditions exist which favour the appearance of mildew earlier in some localities than in others. In order to diminish the probability of error, the dates of the first appearance of mildew were grouped in periods of unequal length, each of them comprising a greater number of days as the season wore on, and thus offered an increasing probability of likeliliood. The first period is of 2 days, the second of 3, the third of 10, the fourth and the fifth of 15 each, the sixth and the seventh of 31; the total period extending from the middle of May to the end of August. Further, all the data were considered only when grouped together in averages. For these detailed investigations the material collected during 1910 and 1911 was used. Two thousand cases of mildew were recognised in the material sent to the Ampelological Station; of these, two hundred in each of the two years indicated the outbreak of the disease in a given district. The dates of the first appearance of mildew were grouped in periods of time gradually more distant from each other and plotted out on a map, surrounding each group with a line. The curves thus obtained are called by the author the "isophanes" of mildew. The graphical representation of the dates on which mildew appeared show that the same dates or those near to each other are connected in a series without interval. This proves undoubtedly that the contemporary outbreak of mildew is caused by contemporary weather conditions favourable to infection, and it is easy to recognise in the sinuosities of the isophanes the lines which mark the quantities of rainfall in each rainy period. This forms a first basis for the valuation of the biological value of climatic conditions in regard to mildew. The isohyetes of the greater quantities of rainfall in April and at the beginning of May nearly coincide with the lines of the first isophanes. In the same manner as the isohyetes of given periods of rain represent diminishing quantities, the isophanes represent successive and increasing periods of time. Consequently the quantity of rainfall influences the time of the outbreak of mildew, or in other words, the spread and probably the intensity of the disease are determined by the gradient of the rainfall. Inverting the postulate, it may be said that from the gradient of the rainfall in a district the first appearance and the trend of the further course of the parasite may be deduced. It has been further observed that the later isophanes enclose the earlier ones: it may therefore be affirmed that, within the limits of Hungary, the fungus does not make its appearance here and there at hazard, but that it follows an uninterrupted course which seems to depend upon certain determined circumstances. As is proved by the isophanes, the spread of the disease depends to such an extent upon climatic conditions and the physiographical character of the soil, that one might almost deny the efficiency of the means of control if it were not for the fact that it is just the incomplete |