96 NOTES AND COMMENT 



harmonizing of the work with economic interests, and the utiHzation of 

 physiological methods in the study of environmental influences upon 

 plants and plant associations. The members of the Commission are 

 Dr. E. Rubel, Prof. C. Schroter, and Dr. H. Brockmann-Jerosch. 



The Textile World Journal describes a new process invented by Prof. 

 James Rossi, of the College of Agriculture at Naples, for retting flax, 

 ramie, china grass and other fibre plants by means of bacterial action. 

 The method is more rapid and dependable than any of the chemical 

 processes now employed, and is superior to earlier methods of bacterio- 

 logical retting in the nature of the organism employed and in the has- 

 tening of its action by the introduction of currents of air into the ves- 

 sels employed. The precautions used for securing complete asepsis are 

 almost as exacting as those of a surgical operation. 



It is announced that arrangements have been made for the prepara- 

 tion of an illustrated flora of the Pacific Coast, similar in character to 

 Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora of the Northeastern States. 

 The execution of the plan is in the hands of Prof. LeRoy Abrams, who 

 will engage the assistance of other Western botanists. The flora will 

 be published in four volumes by cooperation between Stanford Univer- 

 sity and the New York Botanical Garden. 



Meetings of the Pacific Division of the American Association and of 

 the Western Society of Naturalists will be held at Stanford University 

 on April 4 to 7. A special program will be devoted to papers on evolu- 

 tion and genetics. The last day of the meeting will be devoted to an 

 excursion and a visit to the Field Laboratory of Zoology which has just 

 been established by Stanford University. 



