NOTES AND COMMENT 



At the Quarter Centennial of the University of Chicago, celebrated 

 in June, Professor John M. Coulter was presented with an autograph 

 volume containing records of the careers and work of the 82 men 

 and women who have received doctorates in botany during his head- 

 ship of the department. At the Conference of the Department of 

 Botany the papers read were: A Quarter-Century of Growth in Plant 

 Physiology, by Professor Burton E. Livingston, of The Johns Hopkins 

 Universit}'^; The Problems of Plant Pathology, by Professor Frank L. 

 Stevens, of the University of Illinois; and Inland Associations of Algae 

 and their Controls, by Professor E. N. Transeau, of Ohio State Uni- 

 versity. At the joint Conference of the biological departments the 

 papers read were: Bergson's Philosophy of Instinct as Viewed by an 

 Entomologist, by Professor W. M. Wheeler, of the Bussey Institution; 

 and Genetical Phenomena in Oenothera, by Professor George H. 

 Shull, of Princeton University. 



An important feature of agricultm'al practice in New Zealand con- 

 sists in the conversion of natural vegetation into areas of permanent 

 pasture, where the topography is too rough to admit of plowing. The 

 small areas of virgin grassland were covered by the coarse bunch- 

 grass Danthonia raoulii, which is difficult to eradicate. More extensive 

 areas are covered by the native bracken fern, Pteridium esculentuni , 

 which gained its dominance thi-ough fire or other agencies at a remote 

 or more recent time. The methods employed for the elimination of 

 bracken and the establishment of permanent pasture have been de- 

 scribed by Mr. A. H. Cockayne in the June issue of the New Zealand 

 Journal of Agriculture. There are many regions in which the bracken 

 and other ferns are serious weeds, but there are few localities in which 

 an attempt has been made to replace them by instituting a competi- 

 tive vegetation without the aid of cultivation. 



The Ecological Society of America met at San Diego on August 

 9 to 12, in connection with the annual session of the Pacific Division 

 of the American Association. Two sessions were held for the reading 



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