NOTES AND COMMENT 



Exercises were held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on April 19 

 to 21 in dedication of the new laboratory building and plant houses. 

 The laboratory building will accommodate the library and herbarium, 

 laboratory rooms for morphology, physiology, and genetics, rooms 

 for instruction and exhibition, as w^ell as a children's room and a public 

 lecture hall. The exercises epitomized the work of the Garden, em- 

 bracing addresses on topics that have to do with the popularisation 

 and dissemination of botanical knowledge, and also a series of three 

 sessions for the reading of scientific papers. Some thirty-nine titles 

 were read, embracing subjects in nearly all departments of botanical 

 activity. 



Almost 200,000 cords of wood are consumed every year by the wood 

 distillation industry in New York State, according to a report just 

 published by The New York State College of Forestry. The woods 

 principally used are maple, birch and beech, the first giving the largest 

 amount of acid from which the final products are refined. Waste from 

 sawmills in the hardwood regions is sometimes used, but pitchy and 

 soft woods such as pine and spruce are undesirable because of their 

 low yield of products. The crude acid which is one of the first prod- 

 ucts of distillation is combined with slaked lime to form acetate of 

 hme, which in turn is sold to the manufacturers of acetic acid. The 

 acid is used in the manufacture of white lead and acetone, and has a 

 wide variety of uses in the textile and leather industries and the man- 

 ufacture of smokeless powder and other explosives. Wood alcohol is 

 another of the valuable materials obtained from the distillation of 

 wood, being used in the manufacture of paints and varnishes, dyes, 

 formaldehyde and photographic films, and in the stiffening of hats. 

 Wood tar and wood gas are two of the minor products which are prin- 

 cipally used as fuel at the distillation plants. The possibility of such 

 a close utihzation of all parts of the tree in this industry makes it pos- 

 sible to manage timber lands on a basis of great economy. 



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