NEWS NOTES 



Professor Oake Ames, Supervisor of the Arnold Arboretum 

 for the past eight years, and Professor J. G. Jack, connected 

 with the Arboretum for nearly fifty years have retired. The 

 staff at a recent meeting passed resolutions in appreciation of 

 the men and their work. 



A news release from the U. S. Department of Agriculture 

 states that, as soy beans are being used in greater amounts for 

 commercial purposes, it will be necessary in developing new 

 varieties to consider the oil, protein, amino acids, lecithin, 

 iodine, minerals, texture and other characters. Among the uses 

 mentioned for the beans are flour, soy sauce, diabetic food, lard 

 and butter substitutes, candies, health drinks, paint, varnish, 

 glue, plastics, printing ink, linoleum, insecticides and glycerine. 



Professor Fred C. Stewart, for thirty-seven years head of the 

 division of botany at the New York State Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station at Geneva, will retire on July 1. 



In order to increase the use of cotton in road building the 

 Agricultural Adjustment Administration has announced the de- 

 tailed specifications for bids for cotton mats and fabric. The 

 exact amount to be purchased depends on the requests from the 

 various states, but the amount authorized is 80,000 mats to be 

 used in curing concrete roads, and 10,000,000 square yards of 

 fabric, sufificient for 1,000 miles of road. The fabric is to be used 

 in reinforcing bituminous surface highways. 



Extension of the Dutch elm disease quarantine to include 

 26 new townships in New Jersey and 13 new towns in New 

 York was announced on March 31 by Secretary of Agriculture 

 Henry A. Wallace. This extension was made necessary by the 

 finding in the new areas of a small number of trees which had 

 become diseased. Any recent spread of Dutch elm disease which 

 may have occurred cannot be definitely known until scouting 

 starts again as the trees come into leaf, according to Lee A. 

 Strong, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quaran- 

 tine, who is in charge of the department's campaign to save the 

 American elm from destruction by this disease. 



A vegetable breeding laboratory, the first of its kind in the 

 world, has been established by the U. S. Department of Agricul- 



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