86 



Mycologia, the new journal issued from the New York Botan- 

 ical Garden, contains the following on the chestnut canker which 

 Dr. Murrill has earlier described for Torreya : It is well known 

 that practically all of the chestnut trees in and about New York 

 City have been killed within the past few years by the chestnut 

 canker, Diaporthe parasitica ; but the number of trees destroyed 

 has been only very roughly estimated. Through the efforts, 

 however, of Mr. J. J. Levison, arboriculturist of the parks of 

 Brooklyn, who has made a careful survey of Forest Park, it is 

 now known that 16,695 chestnut trees were killed in the 350 

 acres of woodland in this park alone. Of this number, about 

 9,000 were between eight and twelve inches in diameter, and the 

 remaining 7,000 or more were of larger size. 



A report has been made by the Commission which was ap- 

 pointed by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges 

 and Experiment Stations in 1906, to consider various matters 

 relating to the expenditure of public funds. The members of the 

 commission are David Starr Jordan, Stanford University, chair- 

 man ; Whitman Howard Jordan, of Geneva, New York, secre- 

 tary ; Henry Prentiss Armsby, State College, Pennsylvania ; 

 Gifford Pinchot, Washington, D. C, and Carroll Davidson 

 Wright, Clark College, Massachusetts. Among other recom- 

 mendations are the following : 



1. Every effort should be made to promote the trairing of competent investigators 

 in agriculture both in the agricultural, and, so far as practicable, in the non-agricul- 

 tural, colleges and universities, and their training should be as broad and severe as 

 for any other field of research. 



2. The progress of agricultural knowledge now demands that agricultural research 

 agencies shall deal as largely as possible with fundamental problems, confining atten- 

 tion to such as can be adequately studied with the means available. 



3. The work of research in agriculture should be differentiated as fully as practi- 

 cable, both in the form of organization and in the relations of the individual investi- 

 gator, from executive work, routine teaching, promotion and propaganda, and should 

 be under the immediate direction of an executive trained in the methods of science 

 who should not be hampered by other duties of an entirely unlike character. 



4. An advisory board is suggested consisting of members appointed by the Secretary 

 of Agriculture and by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experi- 

 ment Stations, respectively, which shall confer with the Secretary of Agriculture re- 

 garding the mutual interests of the department and the stations and shall consider 

 the promotion of agricultural investigation in general. 



