1887. ] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 163 
The student makes a microscopical examination of the specimens, 
writes out notes and makes sketches, and by the aid of monographs. Ellis’ 
sets of fungi, and such other help as he ean get, determines the species. 
The class this semester have already indentified about sixty or seventy spe- 
cies, and as these are selected so as to embrace representatives from the 
lea ting groups, considerable knowledge of the subject is gained even in a 
ew weeks’ time. Each student is meantime required to prepare an 
essay on a given subject, which is read and criticized before the close of 
the semester. One of these subjects given this spring reads: The Ure- 
dinew, their life-history, with special reference to the question of 
are of economical interest. In preparation for this, the student, to 
whom it was assigned, read largely and intelligently from de Bary, 
Schriter, Farlow, Hartig, Ward and other authorities. 
By the time the work thus outlined has been accomplished the spring 
has advanced far enough to enable us to make collections, and an excur- 
sion is made every week, resulting in the collection, each time, of from 
one to six or eight species of parasitic fungi. We are gathering no 
Others at present. Yesterday afternoon we gathered Synchytrium Ane- 
mones, Peronospora pygmea, Puccinia fusea, ZEcidium podophyllatum 
and Peronospora Ficariz, and examined hosts for others that the class 
are to keep on the lookout for. The specimens obtained in this way are 
¢arried to the laboratory, identified and labeled. 
In addition to this, each one in the cluss is doing a special piece of 
independent work. One is working out the histology of the common 
cedar apple, and another is comparing the normal peach leaf with that 
distorted by the Ascomyces deformans. They will spend the rest of the 
semester on this special work and ‘on the collection and identification of 
the species gathered in our weekly trips. 
There are only two students in this class. The whole number of stu- 
dents pursuing botany at the university this semester is about two hun- 
dred, but the course described above is carefully hedged about with re- 
‘quirements, so that none get into it who are not capable of doing thorough 
Work and a good deal of it.—Vontney M. SpaLpine. 
EDITORI4 L. 
In tHE July number of P pular Science Monthly Dr. Farlow has a 
paper entitled “The Task of American Botanists.” It is to be expected 
that such a subject and such an author would supply something both 
interesting and valuable. It touches upon a point of vital interest with 
to 
‘question, “ What is there for me to do?” Of course, the question is diffi- 
cult to answer, but never hopeless. The chief difficulty lies in the re- 
