94 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 



Of course expression is physiological pri- 

 marily, but more or less separate from its emo- 

 tional side, there are a number of purely 

 physical conditions either permanent or 

 transitory which influence to a large degree 

 our judgment of character. The appearance 

 of good or ill health and the changes which 

 may take place in a face due to the adapta- 

 tions of the body to environment. Under the 

 last come such changes as might take place 

 in the nostrils with variation in altitude, in 

 the development of the jaw muscles due to 

 change of food, and many others. 



Wm. a. Hilton 



Cornell University 



occurrence of euthrips pyri daniel dj" 



new york state 

 For several years pear growers in various 

 localities in this state have observed a pe- 

 culiar blighting of blossoms, which is usually 

 attended by a considerable loss in the fruit 

 yields. In some orchards where this condi- 

 tion has prevailed the crops for the past three 

 years have been almost complete failures. 

 This spring we received specimens of injured 

 blossom clusters from Germantown and other 

 localities along the Hudson Eiver, and we 

 have found that an insect is responsible for 

 this damage. It is known as the pear thrips 

 {Euthrips pyri Daniel), and for the deter- 

 mination of the species we are indebted to 

 Dr. W. E. Hinds, of the Alabama Polytechnic 

 Institute. The insect has attracted consid- 

 erable attention in recent years in California 

 because of its destructiveness to various de- 

 ciduous fruits, but its occurrence in eastern 

 states was not suspected. The adult is a 

 small, brown, winged insect, about one twen- 

 tieth of an inch long, which makes its appear- 

 ance when the buds are opening, attacking 

 the tenderest of the flower parts. Pears, espe- 

 cially, seem to be very susceptible to the at- 

 tacks of the thrips, and many blossoms are 

 killed before the clusters open. This pest has 

 proved a difiicult one to control by spraying, 

 but tests which we have conducted indicate 

 that the thrips may be efliciently combated by 

 slight changes in the scheme of spraying 



which we are encouraging growers to adopt 

 for the control of the pear psyUa. 



P. J. Parrott 



New York Agricultural 

 Experiment Station 



blue stain on lumber 



Each year a great deal of money is lost by 

 lumber companies through the staining of the 

 freshly cut sap yellow pine and red gum 

 stacked in the mill yards. One of the com- 

 monest of these stains is the so-called " blue- 

 stain," which is caused by a number of fungi, 

 many of them belonging to the Pyrenomy- 

 cetes, especially Geratosiomella and Graph- 

 ium. This stain is usually blue or black, due, 

 very likely, to the presence of the brown-col- 

 ored mycelium which grows in the cells of 

 the sap wood only, and does not injure the 

 strength of the wood. The hyphas of the 

 fungi live on the food stuff within the wood 

 cells and do not destroy the walls of the cells. 

 It is the stained appearance of the lumber 

 which seriously decreases its money value. 



The lumber companies try to prevent this 

 stain by various methods, a common one be- 

 ing to dip the freshly sawed lumber into a solu- 

 tion of either sodium bicarbonate or sodium 

 carbonate. This soda dipping process is still 

 uncertain in results; at one time preventing 

 the blue-stain from appearing on the wood, 

 at another having no beneficial efl^ect. 



The varying and often unsatisfactory re- 

 sults obtained in the mill yards where soda 

 dipping has been tried, led to certain investi- 

 gations being taken up in the laboratory. 

 The problem was to find why the soda solution 

 sometimes prevented the growth of the wood- 

 infecting fungus and its spores and sometimes 

 did not. Since the factors determining the 

 growth of Geratosiomella and of Graphium 

 are as yet imperfectly understood, it was 

 thought that a better knowledge of the rela- 

 tion of the fungus to its substratum might 

 lead to a more satisfactory method of destroy- 

 ing it. 



As it is well known that many fungi grow 

 best on a slightly acid substratum, it was 

 thought that the growth of the blue-stain 



