
64 
torial committee in charge of the American Journal of Botany, 
and of the Memoir volume of scientific papers delivered at the 
Dedication exercises of the Garden. 
As reported in the Recorp for October, 1917, I spent some 
weeks in Texas for the United Statés Department of Agriculture, 
studying a sudden outbreak of rust disease on cotton. This 
problem, as well as other problems of plant disease, have con- 
tinued to occupy my research time during the year. 
Respectfully submitted, 
EpGar W. OLIvE, 
Curator of Public Instruction. 
Report on Elementary Instruction, 1917 
By Etren. Eppy Suaw 
The general procedure of the work in the Department of Ele- 
mentary Instruction was influenced this year by war conditions. 
It might perhaps be well to summarize this war work, at the same 
time keeping in mind that our regular activities continued as 
usual, 
During the spring, eighty-two lectures were given outside of the 
Botanic Garden by members of the staff, with an attendance of 
27,715. The majority of these lectures were about small vege- 
table gardens. At five of the public school centers evening talks 
were also given on this same subject. 
A group of fifty women constituting “The Flatbush Garden 
League” received regular instruction in gardening and had a 
demonstration plot ten by twenty feet. A group of twenty from 
the Woman Suffrage Headquarters and also another group called 
“The Davenport Class” made up of fifteen women, received the 
same.instruction as the Flatbush Garden League. 
The Curator of Elementary Instruction was called upon to 
take a class of sixty at Teachers’ College in their extension de- 
partment, giving five lessons and demonstrations on out-door 
garden work. In addition, during Teachers College “War 
week,” a course of five lessons was given to a class of one 
hundred regular students. Similar work was given to a Garden 


