OCTOBER 20, 1899. ] 
(6) Courses must be in ‘botany and 
zoology,’ or ‘botany or zoology.’ 
(ec) A year of either biological science 
should include more anatomy and physiol- 
ogy than taxonomy, although the latter 
must not be neglected. 
(d) I favor a year of botany followed by 
a year of zoology, in the High School 
course. 
IV. 
Methods: (Not presented). 
“On the Occurrence of the Black Rot of 
Cabbage in Europe,’ by H. A. Harding, 
Geneva, N. Y. 
During the season of 1898 this disease 
was observed by the author, on cabbage 
and related plants in fields near Haarlem 
in Holland, Bonn, Karlsrule, Fulda, Berlin, 
Halle on Saale and Kiel in Germany, Sla- 
gelse in Denmark, Zurich in Switzerland 
and Versailles in France. 
Wherever an opportunity to visit fields 
presented itself the disease was always 
found, although with the exception of 
Switzerland and possibly Denmark, it did 
not appear to be of economic importance. 
Field observations were supplemented 
whenever possible by microscopic and cul- 
tural examinations. 
Sections of infested plant parts presented 
the same characters as is shown by the dis- 
ease common in America. 
Cultures uniformly produced a predomi- 
nant growth of yellow colonies, agreeing in 
general appearance and in morphology with 
B. campestris Pam. 
Subcultures were brought to New York 
and inoculated into cabbage and cauli- 
flower. In the case of germs obtained from 
Zurich, Switzerland, the inoculation invari- 
ably produced a disease exactly like that 
found common in our fields, and behaved in 
all respects like cultures obtained from dis- 
eased plants in Wisconsin and New York. 
With germs brought from other plants in 
Europe the results were not so conclusive. 
SCIENCE. 
563 
‘A Thousand Miles for a Fern,’ by 
Charles Edwin Bessey. 
The Southern Maiden-hair Fern (Adi- 
antum capillus-veneris) was found August 
24,1898, in the Black Hills of South Da- 
kota. It grows in the warm streams (25° 
C.), which issue from numerous large 
springs. The species is indigenous. 
‘A Summary of our Knowledge of the 
Fig with Recent Observations,’ by Walter 
T. Swingle, Washington, D. C. 
A summary of the existing knowledge 
concerning the fig, caprifig and caprifica- 
tion, including the results of recent observa- 
tions by the author in North Africa, Greece 
and Asia Minor. 
This paper is published in full below. 
‘The Classification of Botanical Publica- 
tions,’ by William Trelease, St. Louis, Mo. 
This article will appear in full in a later 
number. 
‘The Geotropism of the Hypocotyl of 
Cucurbita,’ by Edwin Bingham Copeland. 
Experiments show that the plant executes 
the geotropic response without direct re- 
gard to the consequences, and without the 
power of adaption to unusual conditions. 
In nature the rapid growth of the under 
side of a prostrate hypocotyl bears the 
cotyledons upward: but if a young plant 
be placed horizontal with the cotyledons 
fast and the roots free, the same response 
bears the roots upward, and is therefore 
likely to be immediately fatal. While the 
object of geotropism is to secure a certain 
arrangement of the longitudinal elements for 
the plant—root, hypocotyl, cotyledons—the 
stimulus is a disturbance of the normal dis- 
position of the transverse pressure of the tis- 
sues. Itis not necessary for the perception 
of a geotropic stimulus that the plant com- 
pare the difference in position or pressure of 
its two halves ; for if the plant is laid pros- 
trate, the lower half will of itself grow more 
rapidly than the upper, as may be demon- 
strated by cutting the halves entirely, apart. 
