233 



tion are marked." It is therefore not due to the presence of 

 parasitic organisms, but to what has been called a "physiological 

 disorder." 



In the June School Science and Mathematics Mr. J. P. Brown 

 makes a plea for the catalpa which he claims has been the 

 object of unjust discrimination by the government. Catalpa 

 hignonoides is soft, at least when young; but Mr. Brown claims 

 that the older growths of even that are hard. Catalpas are 

 rapid in growth, and furniture has been made of trees sixteen 

 years old which the writer feels rank the catalpa with the hickory, 

 black walnut, and oak in hardness and beauty. 



An article on "Golden New England" by Sylvester Baxter 

 {Outlook, September 24) gives the New England states a right 

 to share that term with the familiar "golden west." The article 

 emphasizes particularly the work and influence of the Massachu- 

 setts State Board of Agriculture and the Massachusetts State 

 College of Agriculture. Cape Cod is shown to be good for some 

 thing beside cranberries; and the possibilities along the fruit line 

 are enthusiastically set forth. 



Owners of white birch trees are urged to examine them for the 

 bronze birch borer. Forest birches are less affected by this pest, 

 probably because woodpeckers hold the borer in check there. 

 Infected trees show, according to Professor J. G. Sanders, of the 

 University of Wisconsin, "dead tops and upper branches, which 

 usually bear the leaves of the past season." Such trees "should 

 be examined for the winding galleries in the wood beneath the 

 bark and for ridge-like swellings on the younger green branches." 

 To control the pest, "infected trees should be cut and burned 

 before May i. Trees must be completely destroyed, regardless 

 of their value, if infected. . . . It is useless to cut off and burn 

 the dead portions of the tree, since the beetles have already 

 abandoned them for new, green wood." 



