1886. | _ BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 279 
per cent. aqueous solution of corrosive sublimate instead of pure water. In 
this case the support for the culture plate should be glass or porcelain. Indi- 
vidual butter plates or saltcellars may be utilized. 
Test-tubes five inches long by three-fourths of an inch wide are the most 
convenient. Instead of these, half-ounce bottles of elongate form and with wide 
mouths may be used with equally good results. 
For inoculating or transferring needles for cultures, platinum is the best. 
When this is not attainable use brass wire. Heat the end of a slender glass 
rod five inches long until soft and thrust the wire into the glass for a handle. 
The wire may be three inches long. One of these should be hooked at the end. 
Small sized glass tubing, suitable for drawing out into capillary pipettes, is 
indispensible for the inoculation of culture liquids through the cotton-wool 
stopper. This tubing can be found at any chemical laboratory, or may be had 
of any dealer in chemist’s supplies. The same may be said of suitable pincers 
for handling the sterilized cotton. The latter should not of course be taken in 
the fingers when corking the test-tubes. The rubber cloth called by dentists 
“rubber dam,” and to be had of them, is serviceable for capping cotton-stop- 
pered tubes or bottles to prevent evaporation. Cut the rubber into suitable 
squares, and hold in place with a common elastic band. If test-tubes are use 
a beaker with a little cotton in the bottom serves well for holding, or a little 
basket can readily be made of screen wire cloth.—T. J. BuRRIt. 
EDITORIAL. 
THE BOTANICAL SPIRIT has been so rampant and the botanists so n 
at the recent mectings of the American Association that there have been fre- 
quent suggestions of breaking up the biological section into its constituent 
parts, or at least of making a section of botany. It is urged that the interests 
of the present section are so diverse that it is already found convenient to group 
ose who have no desire to listen 
to the discussion of all biological subjects, and that botany and zoology have 
no more relation to each other than certain other distinct sections, and not so 
much as both to geology. re are several objections to making the proposed 
change that might be profitable to consider. In the first place, after botany 
and zoology have been separated they no more embrace single interests than 
the whole subject of biology, and what is to be the fate of the great field of 
physiology, so ably represented at the Buffalo meeting? In the second place, 
such a division, so far as botany is concerned, 
ical Club into a section of botany. This woul 
social affair into a stiff, business-like, and somewhat heavy body; the small 
notes, the personal suggestions, the hundred things which are often far more 
personally beneficial than weighty papers, would be eliminated, and we would 
predict for the section of botany not a tithe of the attendance, interest, or en- 
thusiasm enjoyed by the Botanical Club. In the third place, the very fact that 
umerous 
