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NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT 
Dr. Mel. T. Cook, of Rutgers College, recently spent a day in 
the library looking over literature relating to the diseases of 
plants 
Bulletin number 36, containing the reports of the Director-in- 
Chief and heads of departments of the Garden was issued April 
e . 
30, 1918. This number completes volume 9 of this publication. 
Mr. W. W. ane assistant botanist of the Bureau of 
Plant a spent several days at the Garden duing May, 
engaged in a study of heuavan ee of plants poisonous 
to stock 
Dr. Arthur Hollick, honorary curator of fossil plants, repre- 
sented the Garden at the thirteenth annual meeting of the 
American Association of Museums held at Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, May 20 to 2 
A number of English spar sparrows were recently observed to be 
busily engaged in picking the seeds from the dandelions and 
apparently eating them. So much ei has been charged to this 
unwelcome ‘‘alien’’ that it seems no more than right to give it 
credit for the small amount of good it may do in the destruction 
of the seed of this troublesome weed. 
In the January number of Phytopathology, L. M. Massey claims 
that a dust mixture consisting of 90 parts of sulphur and 10 
e 
an insecticide and is easier to handle than the pure sulphur dust 
since the arsenate of lead keeps the sulphur from packing. 
Miss Dorothy Coker has just completed her thesis on Encalypta 
with drawings of 8 species, in partial fulfillment of the require- 
ments for an M.A. degree from Columbia University. Her 
