268 The Botanical Gazette. [June, 
Mr. Geo. B. Sudworth (Univ. of Michigan) has charge of 
the strictly botanical work, identifying all species, and an- 
swering economic questions of adaptation of species to cli- 
mate and soils. 
Dr. Charles Mohr is a field agent, who has not only col- 
lected material for timber test work, but has also prepared 
monographs on the southern coniferous trees of commercial 
value. 
Mr. Austin Cary (Bowdoin College) is also a field agent, 
who has been engaged on tree measurements to establish the 
rate of growth and wood production of various species, not- 
ably the black spruce in Maine and New Hampshire, and the 
white and Norway pine in Michigan and Wisconsin. 
The main work of the Division for the last three years has 
been in the line of ‘‘timber physics,” z. ¢., the study of the 
character and value of the wood of our merchantable species. 
For this purpose logs and disk pieces are collected with care 
of the various species from the various localities and soil con- 
ditions in which they occur; the two field agents, Dr. Mohr 
and Mr. Cary, having done most of the collecting. The log 
material goes to the Testing Laboratory of the Washington 
University of St. Louis, where it is subjected to various tests 
systematically under the direction of Mr. J. B. Johnson, the 
professor of engineering in the University. The physical 
examination is in charge of Mr. Filibert Roth (Univ. of Mich- 
igan). 
The monographs of Professor Spalding on the white pine, 
Professor Prentiss on the hemlock, Professor Flint on Pinus 
resinosa and P. rigida, and Miss Kate Furbish on Picea nigra, 
still await publication. 
Such is a bare outline of the botanical work carried on by 
the Department of Agriculture, but it will serve to show its 
general scope. It will also serve to direct inquiry concerning 
various subjects to the proper sources of information, and in- 
dicate in many cases the proper destination of material. 
Lake Forest, Jil. 
