510 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 19. 



of weeds. While the wind was blowing 

 twenty miles per hour a peek of mixed 

 seeds was poured upon the snow crust, and 

 ten minutes after 191 wheat grains, 53 flax 

 seeds, 43 buckwheat and 91 rag weed seeds 

 were found in a trench thirty rods from 

 where they had been poured upon the crust. 



BLACK KNOT OF PLUMS AND CHEEEIES. 



The Black Knot fungus {Ploiurkjhtia mor- 

 hosa Schw.) is an old orchard enemy. Pro- 

 fessor Lodeman, in Bulletin 81 (December, 

 '94) Cornell Experiment Station, has given 

 the long bibliography of the subject and 

 shows, by means of cuts, how the spores of 

 the fungus may find their way between the 

 adjoining layers of bark in the forks of the 

 small limbs. At these places the bark is 

 thin and the growing layer (cambium) 

 comes near to the surface, thus facilitating 

 the inoculation. Lodgement is also pro- 

 duced at these angles between stems, and 

 besides it is here that knots are most apt 

 to form. Experiments in spraying knotty 

 trees with Bordeaux mixture gave results 

 that were decidedly encouraging. 



RECENT APPLE FAILURES. 



In another bulletin (N"o. 84) from the 

 Cornell Experiment Station — and there are 

 many and fine ones — ' The Eecent Apple Fail- 

 ures of Western New York ' are considered 

 by Professor Bailey. A glance at the cuts 

 shows that failures may be due to imperfect 

 pollination, injudicious application of fun- 

 gicides, but more particularly to the ravages 

 of the Apple Scab (Fusieladium dendriticum 

 FL), of which Professor Bailey gives a full 

 page colored plate showing the scab enemy 

 in detail from the appearance of the young 

 distorted fruit to the microscopic structure 

 of the fungus shown in leaf sections. That 

 the scab fungus is the leading cause of 

 apple failures is demonsti-ated by the fact 

 that thorough sprajdng to check it produc- 

 tiveness has been obtained. The essentials 

 for success in apple culture, as given by the 



author as his concise summary, are : " till, 

 feed, prune, spray." 



DETASSELING CORN. 



The removal of the male flowers from a 

 large or small per cent, of the corn plants in 

 a fleld has been experimented upon at va- 

 rious stations. Thus in Marj'land where 

 two-thu'ds of the tassels were removed the 

 detasseled rows gave a decrease of nearl}' 

 10 per cent. At the Kansas Station by 

 detasseling alternate rows of six varieties iu 

 every case there was a reduced jaeld aver- 

 aging 22 per cent. Delaware obtained 

 under similar circumstances an increase of 

 6.6 per cent. 



Before us is the bulletin (No. 37 Feb., 

 1895) upon 'Corn Experiments ' of the Illi- 

 nois Experiment Station in which detassel- 

 ing receives its share of consideration. " In 

 eighteen out of twenty-three comparisons 

 the yield of corn was greater for the rows 

 (alternate) having the tassels removed. 

 For tassels pulled we have an increase of 

 twenty-seven per cent., and for those cut 

 only six per cent. Removed before expand- 

 ing gives an increase of eleven per cent. 

 The average increase is thirteen per cent.'' 

 At the Cornell Station one report (1890) 

 gave an increase of fifty per cent, for detas- 

 seling, but the next j^ear there was no difiier- 

 ence. The results thus far obtained teach 

 that the end of experimentation in this 

 direction is not yet reached. 



Byron D. Halsted. 



RuTGEEs College. 



LAGOA SANTA. 

 Such is the title of a memoir published 

 in 1892 by Professor Eugene Warming, of 

 the Universitj' of Copenhagen. It is also 

 stjded Et Bidrag til den biologiske Planteyeo- 

 grafi, and this sub-title sufiiciently explains 

 the aim of the work. Lagoa Santa is a 

 small village about 835 meters above the 

 sea and 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, 



