When leaves were dried with an air jet or with blotters immediately after standard inoculation, the number of lesions was up to about 100 times as great as on leaves that were allowed to dry naturally. The increase due to quick drying (QD) at 10 seconds after inoculation was only about half that at 1 second after inoculation, and usually no QD effect was apparent at 15 minutes after inoculation. The QD effect has been demonstrated with all viruses tested, which include tobacco mosaic virus, apple mosaic virus, alfalfa mosaic virus, artichoke latent virus, peach ring spot virus, peach yellow bud virus, tomato spotted wilt virus, and a virus from Meyer lemon. The effect was noted on all hosts tested, which include bean, cowpea, soybean, tobacco, cucumber, and pigweed; the greatest manifestation was with cucumber mosaic virus on cowpea. With the sweet potato strain of tobacco mosaic virus, QD itself did not bring about lesion formation on bean, but lesions appeared in greater numbers on QD than on control leaves if inoculated leaves were later heated. The QD effect was reduced when phosphate was added to the inoculum, but increased if silver nitrate, Kinin, or phenol was added. The QD effect was greater with inoculum from recently infected source leaves than from older infections. The QD effect was greater for leaves soaked in water for several hours before inoculation than for normal leaves. When inoculated and quick-dried leaves were rewetted, the QD effect was reduced or eliminated. The QD effect was greater with leaves that wetted readily than for leaves that did not, and for leaves that wetted poorly the QD effect was greater when a wetting agent was added to the inoculum.