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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 691 



to plant bananas in isolated patches, and soon 

 there were extensive plantations. These 

 plantations have been purchased by the United 

 Fruit Company, vs-hich has also large posses- 

 sions in the neighboring republic of Costa 

 Eica. Dr. McKenney gave an interesting 

 account of the methods followed in propaga- 

 ting and cultivating bananas, the gathering 

 of the fruit and its shipment to the United 

 States. He also spoke of the various ways in 

 which the fruit is prepared for food by the 

 natives and its preservation by drying. Dur- 

 ing the past few years many of the banana 

 plants of this region have been suffering from 

 a disease, which Dr. McKenney has been 

 studying. His results have not yet been pub- 

 lished. 



The second paper, by W. M. Scott and J. B. 

 Rorer, was an account of the " Apple Leaf- 

 spot Disease," the result of experiments made 

 by the authors during the past season at Ben- 

 tonville, Arkansas, in connection with spray- 

 ing demonstration work. For the first time it 

 has been conclusively demonstrated that the 

 reddish-brown spots on apple leaves, which 

 cause premature defoliation and ultimately 

 the death of the trees, are caused by Sphce- 

 ropsis malorum Peck, and that Conithyrium 

 pirina (Sacc.) Sheldon, to which the disease 

 was attributed by Alwood and others, is merely 

 saprophytic and has nothing to do with those 

 spots. Pure cultures of both fungi were ob- 

 tained from spots on apple leaves and spores 

 from these cultures were used for inoculation 

 tests. Twenty-four out of thirty apple leaves 

 ■sprayed with sterile water containing spores 

 of Sphoeropsis malorum developed a large 

 number of spots two weeks later, while leaves 

 sprayed with sterile water containing spores 

 of Coniothyrium pirina developed no spots. 

 The latter fungus, however, was found grow- 

 ing on the dead areas caused by the Sphce- 

 ropsiSj as well as on spots produced by other 

 causes. 



The third topic was the " Method of Pre- 

 paring and Preserving Type Material," by H. 

 B. Derr. Botanical specimens exhibited by 

 lecturers and handed about in classes are liable 

 to serious injury. Several methods have been 

 devised to protect such specimens, as well as 



type material which is subject to frequent 

 examination. Thus far all have been unsatis- 

 factory. Mr. Derr exhibited several cases 

 containing specimens of barley from Sweden 

 and hybrids of wheat and rye, which were 

 mounted so that they could be examined care- 

 fully and at the same time were protected 

 from injury. The cases consisted of a rect- 

 angular wooden frame, the sides of which were 

 dove-tailed together, holding in a groove near 

 the front a pane of glass and having a remov- 

 able back lined with a sheet of raw cotton, or 

 antiseptic cotton, upon which the specimen 

 was laid. 



This ended the scientific program. During 

 the supper which followed various topics of 

 botanical interest were discussed, and atten- 

 tion was called to several recent publications. 

 While seated at the table the members of the 

 society were addressed by Mr. Tong, one of 

 the guests of the evening, a Chinese student 

 engaged in the study of rice culture in the 

 United States. 



The 45th meeting was held December 21, 

 190Y, Vice-president C. V. Piper presiding. 



The first regular topic on the program was 

 a " Pot-pourri of Eusts and Smuts," by Dr. 

 E. M. Freeman. Dr. Freeman described 

 various types of smuts and called attention to 

 the present problems relating to them, par- 

 ticularly those in connection with the natural 

 modes of infection. He gave an account of 

 a series of tests of infection of barley at dif- 

 ferent stages of flowering, reviewing briefly 

 the work of Bifiin and others on the problems 

 of resistance to smut. Dr. Freeman also gave 

 an accoimt of a long series of cross-inocula- 

 tions of the uredospores of stem rust on vari- 

 ous grains, which was in effect a continuance 

 of a paper previously presented to the society 

 on the same subject. The work hitherto done 

 in this country has been chiefly on treatments 

 for prevention of infection. Very little has 

 been done on life-histories of smuts. The 

 speaker discussed four types of smut life- 

 histories : 



(a) Corn Smut. — Infection is not special- 

 ized to any one kind of meristem, but any part 

 may be affected. Infection may take place in 



