190 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 840 



second, the preparation of the colloidal 

 silicic acid at such a concentration that in 

 its pure condition it will remain uncoagu- 

 ulated for ahout ten days. If the prepara- 

 tion is much more dilute than this it may 

 fail to coagulate even with the good soils, 

 while if it is much more concentrated it 

 coagulates, presumably from mechanical rea- 

 sons, almost instantly upon adding soil 

 samples from either good or poor spots. 



Whether these results may have a practical 

 bearing upon the management of the refrac- 

 tory soils in question can be determined only 

 by rather extensive field experiments. It is 

 believed, however, that the action of calcium 

 sulphate (gypsum) will improve these soils in 

 the field as it has in the laboratory and that 

 the crop-producing power of the poor areas 

 may then approach that of the good areas. 

 HarIj r. Kellerman 



Btieeau of Plant Industbt, 

 Washington, D. C. 



TEE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



The annual meeting of the Botanical Society 

 of America was held at the University of Minne- 

 sota, Minneapolis, Minn., December 27 to 30, 1910. 



The officers for 1911 are: 



President — W. G. Farlow, Harvard University. 



Vice-president — ^A. W. Evans, Yale University. 



Treasurer — Arthur Hollick, New York Botan- 

 ical Garden. 



Secretary — Geo. T. Moore, Missouri Botanical 

 Garden. 



Councilors — F. B. Clements, University of Min- 

 nesota; C. L. Shear, Bureau Plant Industry; 

 E.. A. Harper, University of Wisconsin. 



The following associate members were elected 

 to full membership: O. W. Caldwell, University 

 of Chicago; E. W. Olive, South Dakota College 

 of Agriculture; E. H. Pond, Texas Agricultural 

 Experiment Station; A. D. Selby, Ohio Experiment 

 Station; M. B. Thomas, Wabash College; and the 

 following botanists were elected to associate mem- 

 bership: Harley Harris Bartlett, Bureau of Plant 

 Industry; Frederick K. Butters, University of 

 Minnesota; H. L. Bolley, North Dakota Agricul- 

 tural College; Merritt Lyndon Fernald. Gray Her- 

 barium; Douglas Houghton Campbell, Stanford 

 University; William Crocker, University of Chi- 

 cago; Abel Joel Grout, Curtis High School, New 



York City; Hans Th. Guessow, Dominion Bot- 

 anist, Ottawa, Canada; Frederick De Forest 

 Heald, University of Texas; E. C. Johnson, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture; Frank D. Kern, Pur- 

 due University; C. H. Kauffman, University of 

 Michigan; Ivey Foreman Lewis, Randolph-Macon 

 College; Emile P. Mienecke, Bureau Plant In- 

 dustry; Raymond J. Pool, University of Ne- 

 braska; Chas. V. Piper, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture; Leigh H. Pennington, Syracuse Uni- 

 versity; Carl Otto Rosendahl, University of Min- 

 nesota; Paul C. Standley, National Museum; 

 Fred J. Seaver, New York Botanical Garden; 

 Josephine E. Tilden, University of Minnesota; 

 Chas.-Edw. Amory Winslow, College of City of 

 New York; Herbert Hice Whetzel, Cornell Uni- 

 versity; E. Mead Wilcox, University of Nebraska. 



The symposium on " Some Aspects of Plant 

 Pathology " was held at the Agricultural College 

 on Thursday and participated in by Professor L. 

 R. Jones, who spoke on " The Relation of Plant 

 Pathology to Other Sciences " ; Professor B. M. 

 Duggar, who spoke on " Physiological Plant 

 Pathology," and Professor E. M. Freeman, who 

 spoke on " Resistance and Immunity in Plant 

 Diseases." These papers, with the discussions, 

 will be published and reprints distributed to the 

 members of the society. 



At the close of the dinner for botanists, the 

 conference on botanical teaching was held, in 

 which Professor C. E. Bessey, 0. W. Caldwell, F. 



E. Clements, J. M. Coulter, R. A. Harper anl 



F. C. Newcombe participated. This discussion 

 will likewise be published and distributed to the 

 members. 



Following are abstracts of the papers presented 

 at the scientific sessions held on Wednesday and 

 Friday afternoon. 



Light as a Formative Factor in the Habit of 



Growth of Asparagus plumosus: Frederick C. 



Newcombe, University of Michigan. 



The shoots of this house plant grow erect for a 

 time, and then turn their tips to the horizontal 

 position. Although this horizontal bend is geo- 

 tropic, as shown by the klinostat, the process of 

 bending is profoundly influenced by the presence 

 of light. The new shoots which start up from 

 subterranean buds are indefinitely nourished in 

 the dark by the older shoots left in the light. 



If a new shoot, a day before the bend was to be 

 made, were covered by an opaque inverted cone 

 of paper, the horizontal bend would occur without 

 noticeable change from the normal. If the light 

 were excluded two days before the time for the 



