296 The Plant World. 



have been instrumental in preventing still greater increases. 

 For this they have never received credit. Such work can 

 not be done in the open, and cannot be advertised, but it has 

 been done. 



From the nature of the case there have been abuses in the 

 distribution. The writer recalls how one member of Congress 

 now a senator, sent out seven times as many packages as there 

 were men, women and children in his district. This was when he 

 was a candidate for election to the Senate, and he used this 

 distribution to increase his popularitv. Another member from 

 one of the prairie states, during a hotly contested election came 

 and frankly stated that he must have several thousand extra 

 packages, as he needed them to help in his campaign. He was 

 an influential member and he got them It is safe to say that 

 the distribution of seeds through members of Congress cannot be 

 made into anything good. Much good can be done, and is being 

 done, by the distribution of seeds, but it is done by the office of 

 Seed and Plant Introduction and Distributiori, and this is care- 

 fully kept free from congressional influence. 



University of Michigan. 



NOTES ON GROWTH OF PINE SEEDLINGS. 

 By J. C. Blumer. 



Perhaps no questions are asked by laymen in regard to 

 trees, more than, "How old are they?" and "How fast do they 

 grow?" It is by answers to questions that information may be 

 most fruitfully imparted, and by accurate replies to inquiries 

 such as these that some of the strongest arguments may be de- 

 veloped for the conservation of the forests, and our natural re- 

 sources in general. In the autumn of 1909, in the Rincon 

 Mountains of Arizona, were found a number of tiny pine seed- 

 lings of two species, Pinus arizonica and P. strobiformis. Some 

 having been pressed and preserved, twenty of them were recently 

 measured. While the drying process shortened them somewhat, 

 this loss of length is not appreciable. Their average height was 

 a very small fraction over one inch (1.069 inches). They were 

 all three years old. Their age was shown by three distinct inter- 

 nodes and as many whorls of leaves. The individuals measured 

 as follows : 



