JUXE 28, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



721 



and Merced counties northward. Through 

 lack of material for properly working out 

 the problem I have provisionally adopted 

 the latter course." 



Since he has 175 specimens that he re- 

 garded as typical longicauda. and 157 that 

 he referred to subspecies pallidtis, or 332 in 

 all, and since these 332 specimens came 

 from no less than 70 localities scattered 

 over the single State of California, it is a 

 little difficult to understand what he meant 

 bj' • lack of material for properly working 

 out the problem.' Furthermore, an exam- 

 ination of the localities assigned to the two 

 alleged forms shows them to be hopelesslj- 

 mixed — both being recorded from the San 

 Joaquin Valley, and both from the coast 

 region north of Monterej' ! 



One of the largest and most highly colored 

 members of tlie group is a new form from 

 Louisiana, collected by the field naturalists 

 of the Department of Agriculture. It is a 

 northern representative of B. mexicaivus and 

 is named, from its color, R. mexicamts auran- 

 tius. 



The paper as a whole is a critical and 

 painstaking study of an obscure group. It 

 is based in the main on ample material and 

 is particularly welcome as adding another 

 genus to those recently revised bj- American 

 mammalogists. C. H. M. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 IHE REMEDY FOR PEAR BLIGHT. 



The wTiter desires to announce that a 

 satisfactory method of preventing pear blight 

 has been discovered. After prolonged in- 

 vestigation the complete life liistory of the 

 microbe (Bacillti.-! Amylovorom) has been 

 worked out. Most of the cases of blight 

 either come to a definite termination in 

 summer or else kill the tree. When this is 

 the case the blight dies out completely, there 

 being no source of supply for the germs the 

 following spring. In certain eases where it 

 is a sort of even battle between the host and 



parasite, or wlicre late infections in the fall 

 have not run their coui-se before cold weather 

 comes on, the blight keeps alive in the tree. 

 When root pressure increases in the spring, 

 such cases start into activity and serve as 

 sources of infection for the new growth. 

 The removal of these sources of infection is 

 the preventive remedy for pear blight. The 

 work is best performed in autumn after all 

 late growth has ceased, but while the foliage 

 is still on the trees. At this season the dead 

 leaves which poi-sist on the blighted branches 

 serve admirably to attract attention to the 

 points of danger. The work can be done at 

 any time during the winter up to the time 

 of the beginning of growth in spring. Cut- 

 ting out the blight in summer is unsatis- 

 factory on account of the continued appear- 

 ance of now- infections. The matter will be 

 published in full in a bulletin from the 

 Division of Vegetable Pathology. 



M. B. Waite, 



DEPARTMKXT OE AORICl-LTUKE. 



THE XEW YORK BOTANIC GARDEN. 



The sum of S2.")0,000 for the New York 

 Botanic Garden has now been sub.scribed 

 as follows : 



J. P. Morgan 825,000 



Columbia College 25,000 



Andrew Carnegie 25,000 



C. Vauderbilt 25,000 



J. D. Rockefeller 25,000 



D. 0. Mills 25,000 



Judge A. Brown 25,000 



Wm. E. Dodge 10,000 



Jas. A. Scrymser 10,000 



Wm. C. Schermerhorn lO.dOO 



Ex-Judge C. P. Daly 5,000 



0. Ottendorfer 5,000 



Samuel Sloan 5,000 



George J. Gould 5,000 



Miss H. M. Gould 5,000 



John S. Kennedy 5,000 



AVm. Rockefeller 5,000 



Jas. M. Coustalde 5.000 



