54a EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



Study has been made of a new bacterial disease of the to- 

 mato, and experiments made with extermination of weeds in 

 lawns, etc., and tests of various proj^rietary sprays and fungi- 

 cides and of crude by-products recommended as soil fungicides 

 and sprays, some of which have proved very eflScient in control- 

 lino- the potato scab. (See twenty-fifth annual report.) 



Experiments relating to the exclusion of roots from drain 

 tile have been continued, and positive results obtained. Experi- 

 ments with chemical methods to destroy horsetail (Equisetiim), 

 one of the worst weeds in cranberry bogs, also give promise of 

 being successful. Attention has been given to the influence 

 of soil moisture on seed germination, and some problems re- 

 lating to the stimulating effects on crops of various gases have 

 been taken up. Further study is being made of soil steriliza- 

 tion, particularly of new methods ; and also of malnutrition of 

 plants. 



A number of problems properly coming under the Adams 

 fund project, and covering in a broad way the effects of 

 meteorological conditions on plants, are being studied as fol- 

 lows : the relation of light to burning from spraying with fungi- 

 cides and insecticides; relation of light to burning from miscible 

 oils ; nature and cause of burning by fumigation with various 

 gases ; effects of electricity on nitrogen fixatiori in soils and on 

 the stimulation of plants in general. 



Some of these investigations have been published during the 

 past year in Bulletin No. 144, '' The Relation of Light to Green- 

 house Culture," a physiological and pathological study of the 

 subject ; another paper dealing with the relation of light to 

 burning from miscible oils is in preparation ; and still others 

 on research problems which have been studied for some time 

 in our laboratory. 



