26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



White Pine Blister Rust.— The white pine bhster 

 rust (Cronartium ribicola) is a European fungus pest that 

 became estabHshed in New England about twenty years ago. 

 It is very destructive to the white pine (Pinus strobus) as 

 well as to other pines with five needles in a bundle. It was 

 hoped that it might be kept out of the West and Northwest 

 where there are still extensive forests of western white pine 

 (P. monticela) and sugar pine {P. Laniberfiana) , both suscept- 

 ible species, but it has recently found a foothold in western 

 British Columbia and Washington. When a pine tree is at- 

 tacked, the fungus does not spread from it directly to other 

 pines, but must first pass a certain stage of its life on the leaves 

 of some species of currant or gooseberry. In making war 

 on the pest, therefore, an attempt will be made to eradicate 

 the species that transmit the disease to the pines, but since 

 these shrubs are very numerous in the Northwest a long and 

 strenuous contest is in prospect. 



A WeedeESS Law X. — Those who dislike the annual 

 labor of eradicating from the lawn dandelions, cjuack-grass, 

 purslane, dock, and other interlopers, will be interested in a 

 new method of lawn-making that obviates this performance. 

 The idea originated at the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 of the Rhode Island States College at Kingston, at least they 

 have been able to maintain what amounts to a weedless lawn 

 there for more than fifteen years. In an Extension Bulletin 

 (No. 13) they tell us how it is done. It all goes back to the 

 (iubject of acid and alkaline soils. It happens that the weedie*" 

 the lawn, the likelier the soil is to be alkaline, or to turn the 

 statement around, if you have an alkaline soil you are likely 

 to have weeds. The weeds have so long fought the crops of 

 alkaline .soils that they have decided aversion tO' soils that are 

 sour, but certain grasses have no objection to acidity and thus 



