40 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



William E. Eudicott moved that the Society remain where it is. 

 On motion of Mr. Rawson, this motion was laid on the table. 



William C. Strong laid before the Society a petition to the 

 State Legislature for an appropriation in support of the new 

 Department of Vegetable Physiology, established by the State 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, and it was voted that the Presi- 

 dent be authorized to sign the petition in behalf of the Society, 

 and to appear before the Committee of the Legislature in support 

 of it. 



Benjamin G. Smith, Treasurer of the American Pomological 

 Society, announced the arrangements made with the railroads for 

 the delegates to the meeting of that Society. 



Adjourned to Saturday, February 2, at half-past eleven o'clock. 



MEETING FOR DISCUSSION. 

 Mildews. 



By James Ellis HuMPHSEr, Professor of Vegetable Physiology in the Massachusetts 

 State Agricultural Experiment Station, at Amherst. 



Professor Humphrey, in compliance with a request, prefaced his 

 lecture with the following brief statement of the object of the new 

 Department of Vegetable Physiology connected with the Station. 

 Two lines of investigation are proposed : first, the study of diseases 

 caused by parasitic plants, which include br far the larger part of 

 the diseases attacking cultivated plants, and which must be studied 

 before remedies can be suggested ; and, second, the investigation 

 of the relations and functions of the individual elements of plant 

 food farther than such investigations have yet been carried. He 

 then went on, as follows : 



In speaking on the subject announced for this discussion, I pro- 

 pose to consider chiefly its theoretical, scientific side, touching but 

 briefly on the practical questions of preventing and combatting 

 the diseases produced by the organisms under consideration, and 

 trusting to the general discussion which may follow to bring out 

 that aspect of the subject more full}". The chief interest of the 

 practical man — the horticulturist or farmer — is to learn how to 

 stop, or, better still, how to prevent the ravages of the increasing 

 number of parasitic organisms which attack the plants under his 



