MYCORRHIZA IN RELATION TO FORESTRY 293 



INSTRUCTION IN BOTANY. 



Report of Committee appointed to consider and report on the provision made 

 for Instruction in Botany in courses of Biology, and inatters related 

 thereto (Prof. V. H. Blackman, Chairman ; Dr. E. N. M. Thomas, 

 Secretary ; Prof. M. Drummond, Prof. F. E. Fritsch, Sir A. W. Hill, 

 Prof. S. Maugham, Mr. J. Sager). 



Chiefly as the result of the response to two questionnaires widely 

 circulated among the secondary schools, the following points emerge : 



(i) That the number of schools including the Biological Sciences in their 

 curricula is increasing. 



(2) That this increase is concerned mainly with work on the animal side, 

 directly in the form of Zoology, or indirectly as part of ' Biology.' 



(3) That ' Biology ' consists of a varying ratio of animal and plant study — 

 approximately 45 per cent, of the schools giving it as half and half, 10-5 per 

 cent, as one-third plant and two-thirds animal, and 4 per cent, as two-thirds 

 plant. 



(4) That ' Biology ' has replaced Botany in one-third of the schools 

 reporting, and that therefore, in spite of the fact that a number of schools 

 have introduced Botany during the post-war period, the study of plant life 

 may be decreasing as a whole. 



(5) That the institution and substitution of ' Biology ' is largely in the 

 pre-matriculation curriculum. 



(6) That the institution of Zoology courses is largely in the post- 

 matriculation or Higher Certificate forms. 



(7) That the majority of these changes have taken place within the last 

 five years, and that therefore their full effect has not yet been seen in 

 examination and University records. 



MYCORRHIZA IN RELATION TO FORESTRY. 



Final Report of Committee (Mr. F. T. Brooks, Chairman; Dr. M. C. 

 Rayner, Secretary ; Mr. W. H. Guillebaud). Drawn up by the 

 Secretary. 



It is considered that soil-inoculation experiments in field plots and in pot 

 cultures have now provided convincing evidence of a direct causal relation 

 between mycorrhiza formation (with evidence of normal functioning) and 

 satisfactory growth of seedlings of three species of Pines : Scots Pine, 

 Corsican Pine and Maritime Pine. 



This evidence has been rigidly tested by experiments from which the 

 operation of any but the biological factors present in very small quantities 

 of humus used as inocula has been excluded.^ 



On certain parts of the sowings of the Forestry Commission in the 

 Ringwood and Wareham areas, especially in the latter, the young trees have 

 either died outright or lingered in a moribund condition showing varying 

 degrees of stunted growth. This is marked by more or less complete 

 failure to form a root system or make active growth, by an unhealthy con- 

 dition of such young roots as are present, and by complete or — in the case 

 of stronger plants — almost complete inhibition of mycorrhiza formation. 



Apart from consequences following upon the method adopted in the 



^ No satisfactory experimental proof has ever been provided of this hypothesis, 

 first put forward by Frank more than fifty years ago. Incontrovertible evidence 

 concerning it was regarded as a first step in the present researches. 



