562 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1430 



in all countries on the diseases of plants and 

 various other aspects of economic mycology. 

 The fii'st number was issued in January, and 

 it is hoped to complete a volume of tetween 

 four and five hundred pages annually. The 

 announcement says : 



Mycologists and plant pathologists often find it 

 difficult to keep themselves informed of the 

 progress of work in other countries. The publica- 

 tions in which an account of current work is given 

 are very numerous and are scattered through a 

 large number of journals, manj' of which only 

 occasionally contain an article of interest. There 

 are few, if any, libraries in which all these pub- 

 lications can be found, while the working mycolo- 

 gists in the overseas part of the British Empire 

 often have access to only a small proportion of 

 tliem. The committee of the Imperial Bureau of 

 Mycology has accordingly felt that it is desirable 

 to start the publication of a compact yet com- 

 prehensive survey of current literature dealing 

 with the various aspects of applied mycology, on 

 the lines of the Review of Applied Entomology 

 published by the Imperial Bureau of Entomology 

 in London. While Botanical Abstracts remains 

 the only journal that aims at giving a complete 

 citation of the liter.ature in all branches of botan- 

 ical science, the present Beview will be specially 

 directed to supplying to workers with restricted 

 library facilities, sufficiently full abstracts of 

 papers on the diseases of tropical crops and other 

 similar matters of interest to mycologists in the 

 overseas parts of the British Empire to enable 

 them to keep informed of the progress of current 

 work. 



Though the chief object of the new journal is 

 to give an up-to-date summary of work bearing 

 on the practical application of the study of plant 

 diseases to the reduction of the wastage due to 

 such diseases in agriculture, the fundamental 

 researches on which most progress in this direc- 

 tion is based have a wider appeal. The Beview 

 will enable all those who are interested in the 

 progress of science to follow the development of 

 one of its younger branches; the student of pure 

 science wiU, it is hoped, find many side-lights on 

 the wider problems on which he is engaged ; while 

 the practical grower will be able to learn the 

 experience in other countries with improved meth- 

 ods for controlling plant diseases. 



Subscriptions, orders and all communications 

 respecting the publication should be sent to the 

 editor, Imperial Bureau of Mycology, K.ew, Sur- 

 rey, England. 



THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS 



In view of its general interest to contributors 

 to scientific journals, we are permitted to print 

 the following letter addressed by Professor 

 Ross G. Harrison, of Yale University, mana- 

 ging editor of the Journal of Experimental 

 Zoology, to its contributors : 



Owing to the high cost of printing and the con- 

 sequent large deficit incurred in the publication of 

 its journals, the Wistar Institute has notified the 

 editorial board of the Journal of Experimental 

 Zoology that, unless financial support is forth- 

 coming, it will not be possible to print during the 

 present year more than two volumes or one thou- 

 sands pages of the Journal, instead of the three 

 volumes of five hundred pages each published in 

 1921. Since the war material for pubhcation has 

 been coming in at a rapidly increasing rate, so 

 that there is now on hand more than sufficient to 

 fill the two volumes to be issued this year. This 

 means that, under present conditions, manuscripts 

 now received can not appear much earlier than 

 eighteen months from date. It is hoped that 

 before long conditions in the printing trade will 

 become more favorable or that some method of 

 financing the deficit may be devised. In the mean- 

 time, the editorial board find it necessary to ask 

 your cooperation in meeting the present difficul- 

 ties. This can best be done by making papers as 

 concise as possible, by using the simplest form of 

 illustration — such as can be reproduced by zinc 

 engraving, by omitting tables as far as is con- 

 sistent with clearness, and by avoiding duplica- 

 tion in pubhcation. 



The editors do not wish to set any arbitrary 

 limit to the length of papers that can be accept- 

 ed; for some are concise at fifty pages and others 

 verbose at five. A colored plate may be a neces- 

 sity in some instances and a useless expense in 

 others. It is felt, however, that almost every 

 paper would be improved by judicious pruning, 

 and the authors, as the best qualified persons to 

 do this, are asked to undertake the task. It is 

 scarcely to be expected that even the utmost self 

 restraint on the part of contributors will entirely 

 meet the exigencies of the situation, so. that the 

 editors will probably have to exercise their judg- 

 ment as regards the space that can be allotted to 

 each paper submitted. Nevertheless, if contribu- 

 tors are willing to undertake drastic measures 

 themselves, it will frequently spare the editorial 

 board the necessity of declining papers which, 

 under other circumstances, they would like to 



