89 
Research Information Service of the Council, who is Resident 
Director of the Service at the headquarters in Washington. The 
opportunity I had of examining the working of the latter service 
was of particular interest, since it is engaged on work very similar 
to the “informational” side of the work of the Bureau of 
Mycology. 
The question of abstracting and indexing scientific literature 
is occupying the attention of various organizations in America. 
A joint committee of the National Research Council and the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science was 
formed to consider this matter in 1920, and the question of 
taking steps for the establishment of an international institute for 
scientific bibliographical work is being examined, Dr. Kellogg 
being now in Switzerland on behalf of the National Research 
Council with a view to reporting on the utilization of the Concilium 
Bibliographicum at Zurich as a nucleus for the proposed institute 
This is a matter of direct interest to the Bureau of Mycology. 
In a general way, much more attention is being paid to the 
“business ” side of the organization of scientific work in the 
United States than elsewhere, and this is coupled with the 
development of ‘‘ team work ” in attacking important problems. 
They are recent developments and have not yet begun to produce 
their full effects, but the thoroughness of the preliminary prepara- 
tion and the numbers who have combined to give effect to these 
aims make it certain that the result will be a vast stimulation of 
research activities. It was several times remarked to me that the 
formation of the Bureaux of Entomology, Tropical Diseases, and 
Mycology in London was evidently in response to similar needs, 
and that we should keep in close touch with one another. In the 
development of closer international relations, the trend in 
America is in favour of separate national organizations in the 
different countries with close mutual relations rather than single 
international institutions such as the International Institute of 
Agriculture at Rome. In our work we cannot fail to develop 
international contacts, and the sympathetic attitude towards such 
contacts (especially with the British Empire) which I found to be 
pretty general in the States will be well worth consolidating. I 
found a very wide recognition of the truth that phytopathology 
is as definitely an international interest as public health, and in 
several addresses at functions which I attended the formation of 
the Bureau of Mycology was welcomed on account of the inter- 
national significance of its work. : : 
The chief places visited with the special object of seeing the 
work on crop improvement and diseases were St. Paul (Minnesota) 
for cereals, Fargo (North Dakota) for flax, Baton Rouge and 
Audubon Park (Louisiana) for sugarcane and rice, Hartsville 
(South Carolina) for cotton and maize, New Haven (Connecticut) 
or tobacco and maize, St. a one vane ip 
fruit, Lansing (Michigan), Lafayette ana), an 
(Illinois) for ni = and vegetables, and Cornell (New York 
e. 
for maiz 
