September 5, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



227 



of the Drapers' Biometrie Laboratory and the 

 Galtoii Eugenics Laboratory was completed in 

 1914. This building contains a public lecture 

 theater, a public museum and library, archive 

 and instrument rooms, anthropometric labor- 

 atories and investigation rooms, besides full 

 provision for laboratory and class teaching, 

 with private rooms for research workers. The 

 building was used for war purposes and 

 rnoney is now needed to complete its equip- 

 ment. Professor Pearson writes: 



The Biometrie and the Galton Laboratories were 

 the first of their kind to be established; they no 

 longer stand alone. The United States have their 

 professors of biometry and their eugenics labora- 

 tories backed by funds which we can not hope 

 to rival. Why is it that Britain so often starts 

 the new idea, but leaves it to fructify in other 

 lands? Especially important is at the present 

 moment the field of activity for our science. The 

 war has brought many problems to the fore; eu- 

 genical research has much ground to make up, and 

 most serious questions as to national efficiency are 

 demanding scientific treatment. The Galton Lab- 

 oratory is in every respect in a worse position in 

 1919 than it was in 1914; its staff has to under- 

 take far heavier and more urgent work than it 

 then dreamt of; its buildings can not be properly 

 equipped; its publication funds, slender in 1914, 

 can not now encompass a third of what was pos- 

 sible at that date, for the price of printing, bind- 

 ing and publication is now nearly threefold; me- 

 moirs awaiting publication, can not be issued. 

 And, lastly, the highly-trained staff, largely ab- 

 sorbed into national work during the past five 

 years, can. not be reestablished on the old basis, for 

 the old scale of payment has ceased to provide a 

 living wage. The war has in many eases crippled 

 institutions as well as men. Are we to see the 

 scheme of one of the most suggestive and inspir- 

 ing men of modern times and a science wholly 

 British in its iaception reduced to infruition be- 

 cause the university and the Galton Laboratory 

 staff did what lay in their power to aid the na- 

 tional cause in a time of grave pressure? 



THE POTATO DISEASE CONFERENCE 



On June twenty-fifth to twenty-eighth the 

 advisory board of American Plant Pathol- 

 ogists held a Potato Disease Conference on 

 Long Island at which nearly one hundred 

 X)ersons chiefly interested in plant disease at- 



tended. Meetings were held at Eiverhead and 

 Watermill, Long Island and at the Hotel Mc- 

 Alpin, ISTew York City. 



Three automobile excursions were taken 

 through the island. On "Wedneslay, June 25, 

 a tour was made of the north side where 

 several most interesting field experiments were 

 inspected. These experiments were conducted 

 under the direction of representatives from 

 the New York State College of Agriculture, 

 the Suffolk County Farm Bureau, The Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, United States Department 

 of Agriculture, representatives from Canada 

 and Bermuda, and the Geneva Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. 



On Thursday a trip was taken to the south 

 side, where further experiments were in- 

 spected. During the afternoon, a meeting was 

 held at Watermill, where addresses were made 

 by Dr. A. D. Cotton, of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, England, who spoke on the develop- 

 ment of plant pathology in England; by Dr. 

 George H. Pethybridge, of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, Ireland, who gave a history of the 

 phytopathological work in Ireland; by Dr. H. 

 M. Quanjer, of the Pathological Laboratories, 

 Wageningen, Holland, who gave a resume of 

 his researches on leaf-roll and mosaic of 

 potato; and by Dr. H. A. Edson, of the Office 

 of Cotton, Truck and Forage Crops Disease 

 Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, who 

 read a paper by Schultz, Folson, Hildebrandt 

 and Hawkins on " The Mosaic Disease of the 

 Irish Potato." 



On Friday, a tour of N'assau county was 

 enjoyed by those attending the conference. 

 Among the places of especial interest visited 

 on this trip were the field laboratory of the 

 !N"ew York State College of Agriculture, at 

 Greenlawn, the Pratt Estate, at Glen Cove 

 and Sagamore Hill, the home of the late 

 Colonel Eoosevelt. A special visit was also 

 made to Colonel Roosevelt's grave. 



On Saturday, about forty met at the Brook- 

 lyn Botanic Garden for a conference of the 

 N'orth East Pathologists on general plant 

 diseases. At this meeting they wer« addressed 

 by Dr. H. M. Quznjer, who gave an illustrated 



