REPORT OF THE SOCIETY 87 



given to the "Short Course" agricultural classes held in the different counties 

 of the province, and this work has been continued in 1917, with the addition 

 of a six weeks' tour in the "Better Farming" special train of instruction sent 

 out by the Ontario Department of Agriculture. 



This station has also undertaken the field and crop inspection of potatoes 

 grown for seed by the Ontario members of the Canadian Seed Growers' 

 Association and though this work has been somewhat limited in extent 

 heretofore, it is bound to become of great importance as soon as the needs of 

 a growing potato industry establish a demand for clean certified seed, free 

 from transmissible diseases. 



In the report of the Dominion Botanist are entered each year notes and 

 summaries of the work accomplished. In addition there is a considerable 

 output of articles of local and immediate interest for the daily press and for 

 horticultural journals. In 1915 a bulletin on the "Fruit Tree Diseases of 

 Southern Ontario" was prepared, which has since been issued as Special 

 Bui. 24 of the Central Experimental Farm. 



THE FIELD LABORATORY FOR PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND AND ITS WORK 



Paul A. Murphy, B.A., A.R.C. Sc.I., Assistant in charge 



Situated on the Experimental Station, Charlottetown, P.E.I., the 

 Field Laboratory of Plant Pathology for Prince Edward Island was begun 

 in the late autumn of 1915 and was ready for occupation in the course of the 

 ensuing winter. The idea which underlay its foundation was to have an 

 establishment controlled by a technical officer, who would be capable of 

 studying the diseases of crops under local conditions and of finding a remedy 

 for as many as possible from the means Ipcally at hand. 



The Charlottetown laboratory, the second of its kind in Canada, is 

 unique in several ways not only in the Dominion but elsewhere, for it is a 

 field laboratory in the truest sense of the word — standing in the field and 

 (through the interest taken in the work by the Superintendent of the Experi- 

 mental Station, Mr. J. A. Clark) surrounded by its own experimental plots, 

 and one fully equipped for continuous research work summer and winter. 

 It is doubtful if there exists anywhere an institution as well fashioned and 

 furnished for carrying on the work for which it was designed. Planned on 



