NEWS. 
PROFESSOR EDUARD STRASBURGER traveled in Egypt during part of December 
and January. 
Dr. OskaR BREFELD, professor of botany at Breslau, has retired owing to 
failing eyesight. 
Mr. WALTER FISCHER has resigned his position as Assistant in Botany at 
the Ohio State University, and has taken up work in the United States Department 
of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry. 
Dr. A. F. BLAKESLEE, who is spending the winter in investigations at Halle, 
was awarded the Bowdoin prize of Harvard University ($200) last spring for his 
work on sexual reproduction in black molds. 
In November and December Dr. Joan W. HARSHBERGER, of the University 
of Pennsylvania, delivered a series of five lectures on “Weird and. marvelous 
plants” in the Ludwick Institute courses of free lectures, Philadelphia. 
Dr. Ernest A. Bessey has been transferred from Washington to the Sub- 
tropical Laboratory of the U. S. Department of Agriculture at Miami, Florida, 
where he may be addressed in future. Professor P. H. Rotrs, formerly of the 
Sub-tropical Laboratory has accepted the directorship of the Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station of Florida. 
A RECENT circular gives an account of the Royal Hungarian Central Institute 
of Viticulture, the buildings of which were completed in 1904. This institute 
was initiated in 1896 by a law decreeing the establishment near Budapest of an 
institution for studying the problems of viticulture and wine-making, and giving 
scientific and practical instruction in these subjects. In 1898 Dr. IstvANFFI, 
then professor at the University of Kolozsvar, but perhaps better known from 
his association with BREFELD during part of the latter’s extensive investigations, 
was called to organize and direct the new institution, whose first work was done 
in quarters rented until the completion of the new ones. The present buildings 
are five, each of three stories. The main hall, 66%21™ contains the library, 
museum, offices, and lecture room. The four smaller halls, all similar in con- 
struction, are devoted respectively to the four sections: (1) physiology and path- 
ology, (2) chemistry, (3) zymology, and (4) practical viticulture and oenology. 
The institution is excellently equipped for carrying on these different branches 
of work. Its primary object is that of an experiment station whose field is restricted 
to the wine-growing interests alone; secondarily, provision is made for instruction 
to advanced students in the practical aspects of viticulture and oenology. 
[1906 80 
