IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
35 
work has been along the lines of economic botany, chiefly along the line of 
diseases of plants. 
Investigation, it might be said, was the main work and for some years this 
was conflned to a study of various plant diseases, at the outset — particularly 
the rots of the sweet potato and of the cranberry, and later the truck crops 
generally were considered. The results have been published annually in a 
report averaging a hundred pages fully illustrated; while bulletins upon single 
subjects appeared from time to time, as upon (1) Diseases of Spinach, (2) of 
Cabbage, (3) of Beets, (4) of Potatoes, (5) of Asparagus, (6) of Celery. Along 
with these, attention was paid to weeds, and some bulletins were issued con- 
cerning these pests; while subjects like Poisonous Plants, Irrigation, etc., were 
considered, and he even went so far as to compile for a special purpose a 
bulletin upon Forest Trees, and another upon Live Covers for Country Homes, 
etc. Of late years his work has been largely in the improvement of plants 
through selection and breeding, and the annual reports and bulletins of the 
past seven years are chiefly upon this general subject. The crops worked with 
have been the vegetable fruits, as tomatoes, eggplants, beans, sweet corn, etc. 
During late years Dr. Halsted has been handicapped owing to the loss of 
good eyesight. In his letter to me he says: “The misfortune of disability 
demanded so great a change in the work that I am at a loss to name any line 
as the main one of my work years. Had my eyes and nerves permitted, some- 
thing might have been brought nearer to completion in vegetable pathology. 
The start was made too late with great handicap to get much done in plant 
breeding and allied subjects that have kept me out of doors and in touch with 
plants during late years.” 
LAUNCELOT ANDREWS. 
It is safe to say that the Iowa Academy of Science would not have been a 
w'dl rounded Academy without some representatives from the chemists and 
physicists who identifled themselves with the Academy in its early day. There 
were not many at this time, although recently they have been quite 
active in the work of the Academy. The old Iowa Academy of which this is 
a child had several members who were physicists. I And among these the 
names of Dr. G. Hinrichs, Profs. Nipher and Macomber; of chemists in the old 
Academy I And the names of Profs. Pope and Hinrichs. It is gratifying that 
the present Iowa Academy has enlisted among its active workers men of this 
profession from nearly every institution of higher learning in the state. 
Among the older chemists in the state no one did more for chemistry in the 
Academy than Dr. Andrews, who attended many of its meetings and presented 
papers which embodied the results of his investigations carried on at the 
University. It was my pleasure to have made his acquaintance at one of the 
early meetings of the Academy in Des Moines. I have worked with him on 
various committees of the Academy, and it was always a pleasure to do so. 
Dr. Andrews has published many scientifle papers, the more important being 
the following: Volumetric Determination of Minute Amounts of Arsenic; 
Volumetric Determination of Combined Sulphuric Acid; The Use of lodates 
in Volumetric Analysis; A New Volumetric Method for the Determination of 
Mercury; On the Nascent State; Study of Iodide of Starch; Refractive Indices 
of Alcohol-Water Mixtures; Quantitative Separation of Bromides from Chlo- 
rides; Density Curve of Bromine-Chlorine Mixtures. 
