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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. .S06. 



the President (Sir William Turner) before the 

 British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science,' H. S. Pritchett discusses ' The Pop- 

 ulation of the United States during the Next 

 Ten Centuries ' computing that by 2900 it 

 will amount to 41 billions, and Edward At 

 kinson has an article on ' The Distribution of 

 Texas.' Clinton Rogers Woodruff considers in 

 a hopeful vein ' Municipal Government now 

 and a Hundred Years ago ' and William Bar- 

 clay Parsons has an article on ' China ' giving 

 a brief outline of its political and physical 

 status. David Starr Jordan contributes a 

 short skit on ' Rescue Work in History ' and 

 W. W. Campbell presents an appreciative 

 sketch of James Edward Keeler. In ' Discus- 

 sion and Correspondence ' attention is called 

 in an article that deserves to be read and 

 heeded, to the literary sins of many writers on 

 scientific topics. There are reviews of current 

 scientific literature and notes of the progress of 

 science. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 326th meeting was held on Saturday 

 evening, October 20th', and was devoted to a 

 ' Symposium on Cotton.' 



H. J. Webber presented some ' Notes on Cot- 

 ton Hybrids,' stating that the attempt was 

 being made to produce a plant which should 

 possess the long staple of the Sea Island Cotton, 

 have a seed that would admit of the ready re- 

 moval of the fiber and would grow well on the 

 uplands. Hybrids he said were as a rule more 

 vigorous than the parent plants, although being 

 as regards structure and appearance interme- 

 diate between them. The speaker described 

 some of the crosses that had been made and 

 exhibited a series of specimens showing the 

 successful results that had followed. 



L. H. Dewey spoke concerning ' Some For- 

 eign Varieties of Cotton,' saying that while the 

 United States annually produces cotton to the 

 value of nearly $400,000,000, it imports each 

 year about $4,000,000 worth for special pur- 

 poses. Most of our imported cottons, it was 

 said, came from Egypt where they have been 

 developed from Sea Island cotton, by long cul- 

 tivation under irrigation, in a dry and practi 



cally rainless climate. The lint varies from 

 snow white in ' Abbasi ' to brown in 'Mitaflfi.' 

 The plants are large and spreading, similar to 

 our Sea Island plants, but larger and with 

 yellow iJowersand small ' 3 locked ' bolls. The 

 lint is strong, lustrous, soft, and with a well 

 developed twist. It is used chiefly for fine 

 knit goods and for mercerized goods. 



Peruvian cotton, which is borne on perennial 

 cotton plants, has a short, brown, finely crimped 

 fiber, and is imported for mixing with wool 

 which it resembles. 



A white uneven lint is produced in Porto 

 Rico from a perennial plant, and plants of the 

 ' kidney cotton ' type are cultivated in the 

 Philippines. In Paraguay the two principal 

 varieties grown are red cotton {Algodon Colo- 

 rado), producing a reddish brown lint, and white 

 cotton {Algodon bianco) producing white lint. 



Nearly all varieties mentioned were illus- 

 trated by specimens, and leading American and 

 Egyptian varieties were illustrated by full sized 

 plants with flowers and mature bolls. 



W. A. Orton read a paper on ' Selection for 

 Resistance to the Wilt Disease of Cotton ' a 

 malady which has caused serious injury in the 

 Sea Island Cotton and is becoming more trouble- 

 some in the upland cotton. It is caused by a 

 soil parasite, Neocosmospora vasinfecta (Atk.) 

 Erw. Sm., which attacks the young rootlets 

 and grows from them into the vascular bundles 

 of the main roots and of the stem, which are 

 filled. The brown discoloration of the wood 

 produced by the fungus is a characteristic 

 symptom of the disease. Trials had been made 

 of a large number of soil fungicides, but none 

 had been found successful and the greatest hope 

 of remedy seemed to lie in the production by 

 selection of immune races of cotton. 



A test of twenty kinds of cotton showed that 

 the Egyptian sorts and one American upland 

 variety, the Jackson, were strongly resistant to 

 the wilt disease. These plants were somewhat 

 dwarfed by the disease and there were numer- 

 ous root tufts present, which demonstrated the 

 presence of the fungus in the soil, and showed 

 that the plants were actually resistant. In- 

 dividual plants in diseased fields are often found 

 living when all others around them have been 

 killed, and seed from such plants has been 



