The Imperial Bureau of Mycology. E. J. Butler. 70 
possible and named collections issued to various centres, 
especially the laboratories overseas. Types will not be kept at 
the Bureau as the collections there will be essentially working 
collections, the types being preserved at the Kew Gardens 
Herbarium or, in the case of specimens dealt with by outside 
specialists, at some centre agreed on in advance. 
So far the Bureau has been considered as a centre for accumu- 
lating information and a clearing house for referring such 
information to the proper source, and as a centre for the 
systematic and cultural study of injurious fungi and an agency 
for getting the parasitic fungus flora of the overseas parts of the 
Empire worked out. 
Nothing has been said about the prosecution of original 
research into the diseases of plants. The diseases with which 
we are concerned are those occurring in the distant parts of the 
Empire, and I hold strongly the view that true pathological 
research can only be done on the spot, where living clinical 
material is available. But I hope that the Bureau will become 
a place to which the overseas worker will naturally gravitate 
when in England on leave or otherwise, and every effort will be 
made to provide him with well-equipped laboratories where he 
can continue the study of problems in which he is interested, in 
directions which can be done at a distance from the crop 
concerned, and which can be checked and controlled by his own 
first-hand knowledge of the local conditions. I hope research 
work of various kinds will go on at the Bureau, but I hope 
equally that it will never be believed that the Bureau can replace 
the local worker, for that is not true. 
Most countries now legislate for the exclusion or control of 
injurious fungi. Each country has usually worked out its own 
methods of dealing with this question and there is need for a 
central clearing house which can supply authentic information 
regarding the practice elsewhere. I am collecting the various 
acts and ordinances and I hope we will be able to notify changes 
or give other useful assistance in connexion with this matter. 
It is often difficult for the isolated worker to procure the 
most suitable spraying or other appliances or to keep entirely 
up-to-date in the practical methods of dealing with fungus 
diseases. Here again I think we can usefully help by keeping 
in touch with manufacturers and with those who are testing new 
methods. 
Apart from the diseases of plants, there are two other branches 
of applied mycology to which a brief allusion may be made, the 
study of the diseases of animals and man caused by fungi and 
the study of the fungi that are of importance in technical 
manufactures and trades. There is a vast field in our tropical 
