October 24, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



669 



tory become a branch of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion and should Dr. Gardiner be retained as 

 secretary, he should receive a salary. 



Dr. Gardiner sends bis letter to the ' Editor 

 of Science,' but addresses me personally. The 

 editor of Science, as representing the policy of 

 the journal, is responsible for the acceptance 

 of my article for publication, but not for the 

 opinions expressed in it. 



J. McKeen Cattell. 



Columbia Univeesitt. 



orange county mastodons. 



Mr. Gordon will, I trust, pardon me for 

 saying that he is mistaken in supposing that 

 the bones of the last three mastodons discov- 

 ered in Orange County were found in their 

 proper relative positions. The Schaeffer spec- 

 imen was scattered over about thirty by fifty 

 feet and the greater portion of three legs was 

 never found. The Monroe specimen is sadly 

 incomplete and there is reason to suppose that 

 part of it is a hundred yards away from 

 where the tusks were discovered. Finally, the 

 entire hind legs of the otherwise fine animal 

 at Yale have never been recovered. There is 

 also a specimen at Vassar that I believe came 

 from the vicinity of Newburgh, and this too 

 is incomplete. 



It is possible, however, that Mr. Gordon 

 has reference to the Peale specimens, and 

 these, I believe, were fairly complete. If it is 

 to these that Mr. Gordon refers, the mistake 

 is on my part. F. A. Lucas. 



Washington, D. C, 

 October 10. 



8E0RTER ARTICLES. 



THE BITTER ROT DISEASE OF APPLES. 



On July 10, of this year, Mr. R. A. Simpson, 

 an agent in the employ of this laboratory, 

 called our attention to the fact that the bitter 

 rot spores which infected the apples in his 

 orchard at Parkersburg, 111., seemed to come 

 from canker-like formations on the limbs of 

 the apple trees. The bitter rot was first 

 observed by him July 9. An examination of 

 the trees on which the rot had appeared showed 

 that in almost every instance it was possible to 

 trace the infection to such a canker. The 

 tracing was comparatively an easy matter, as 



the first lot of infected fruit usually occurs 

 distributed in the form of a cone, with its apex 

 towards the top of the tree. Although it 

 seemed probable from Mr. Simpson's dis- 

 covery, which was verified and extended by us 

 several days later, both in the orchard at 

 Parkersburg and elsewhere in Illinois and 

 Missouri, that a causal relation existed 

 between the cankers and the bitter rot disease 

 of the apples, it was not thought sufficiently 

 well proven at that time to warrant publica- 

 tion. Examinations of the cankers showed the 

 presence of pycnidia containing the charac- 

 teristic pale bitter rot spores, likewise of 

 numerous spores of Sphceropsis malorum, of a 

 species of Alternaria and spores of several 

 other fungi. In the cultures made from 

 numerous cankers Oloeosporium fructigenum 

 appeared in every instance.* 



At first eonidia borne free on short hyphal 

 branches appeared in the pure cultures, and 

 later on the pink masses of spores usually 

 found on diseased fruits. When kept for some 

 time, the fungus in these pure cultures pro- 

 duced perfect perithecia and asci. Mycelium 

 which produces perithecia and asci when trans- 

 ferred to fresh apple agar, will continue forni- 

 ing perithecia, the latter appearing in such 

 fresh cultures seven to eight days after the 

 transfer. Inoculations were made into the 

 bark of healthy apple trees about the middle 

 of July, with spores from pure cultures ob- 

 tained from the cankers. At the same time 

 apples were inoculated with these same spores. 

 In the course of a week the infected apples 

 showed every sign of the bitter rot disease as 

 found out of doors. Inoculations were like- 

 wise made with Glceosporium spores taken 

 from apples recently attacked in the orchard, 

 both into healthy apples and into growing 

 apple branches, at the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden. Inoculations into the branches were 

 made by making shallow cuts through the 

 bark, and inserting a needle point covered 

 with spores into the cut. Control cuts were 

 made for every inoculation, distant but two 

 to three inches from the infected cut. At 

 first little difference was noticeable between 



* Most of the cultures were made by Mr. Geo. 

 G. Hedgcoek, assistant in patholog}'. 



