EDITORIAL. 



According to an estimate made by the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, the annual loss in this country from plant diseases, such 

 as rusts, smuts, mildews, etc., amounts to from ^150,000,000 to $200,- 

 000,000. 



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The daily papers of current date are filled with accounts of the 

 terrible devastation being wrought by forest fires in the West and 

 Northwest. Aside from the appalling loss of life, the destruction of 

 thousands of acres of valuable timber is sufficient to cause a feeling 

 almost of despair to all lovers of trees. Will not every one of our 

 readers take it as a personal responsibility to urge the passage and 

 observance of laws looking toward the preservation of our forests, 

 before it is too late? 



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At the earnest solicitation of a number of our patrons it has been 

 decided to publish a series of articles and notes on the teaching of 

 botany. This will probably be begun with the December number, 

 and will embrace especially articles on teaching in the secondary 

 schools, such as directions for the study of special groups of plants, 

 preparation of material, collecting of specimens and making of the 

 herbarium, school gardens and herbariums, and timely hints. Short, 

 pithy articles and notes along these lines from practical teachers will 

 be very acceptable. The first of the series will be on the study of 

 algae in high schools, by Miss Josephine E. Tilden, of the University 

 of Minnesota. 



PARASITISM OF ORTHOCARPUS PUSILLUS. 



Mr. T. Burtt Davy has the following brief account on the para- 

 sitism of this little plant in the September number of ErytJiea : " This 

 plant, met with all the way from San Francisco and Oakland to Oregon, 

 I have recently discovered to be parasitic on the roots of certain an- 

 nual grasses and Er odium circutarium. It probably has other hosts 

 also, and as of interest on this point a letter from a correspondent 

 here follows: 



*' * You will find enclosed a branch of a weed which has lately 

 made its appearance in our valley lands, and it seems to take posses- 

 sion, and wherever it comes the grass disappears; but still it does not 

 seem to grow thick enough to cJioke out the grass. Many of our fields 

 that have always been very productive of clover and also rye- grass, 

 are being covered with this, and at a distance it looks like moss; it 

 comes on fields that have been newly seeded, as well as old pastures.' " 

 — C. E. Spear, Hiinibolt Co., Cal. 



