400 
The Bulletin of the Imperial Institute started in 1903, has often 
been quoted in this Journal. It includes for the past year fifty- 
eight reports and special articles of the greatest value. The 
Director and his staff have also published four Parliamentary papers, 
and a number of other articles of great scientific value in other 
publication and as independent works. 
The whole report is in fact a very modest account of a vast 
amount of research, carried out at a very moderate expenditure. 
The funds of the establishment have never been very extensive and 
the cessation of the grant of £2,000 a year previously made by the 
Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition which came to an end in the 
beginning of 1906, naturally caused some anxiety and made it 
necessary to trench to a considerable extent during the year on the 
accumulated balance of funds, to avoid a serious reduction in the 
efficiency of the epartment, and has also made it impossible to 
meet the legitimate demands for expansion. Negotiations are tak- 
ing place to form a scheme for putting the Scientific and Technical 
Department on a satisfactory financial footing, and it is sincerely 
to be hoped that this may be effected. The establishment appeals 
to every agriculturist, miner, merchant and manufacturer in the 
Empire, and more especially to those in the Colonies. The nation 
has lately been strongly reproached for its neglect of Science and 
Scientific investigation, in the appreciation of the importance of 
which it is far behind other countries, instead of being as would 
naturally be expected in the forefront. It is quite time that this 
reproach should be taken away. 1 he Imperial Institute has shown 
its capabilities in a most marked way. Its value to the Empire is 
now assured. It only remains for its financial position to be assured 
in such a way as to not only continue its work as in the past year 
but to expand its scope to the fullest extent. 
H. N. R. 
A DISEASE OF RUBBER SEEDLINGS. 
A Correspondent in Borneo sends a letter containing an account 
of a vicious attack on his rubber seedlings which destroyed many. 
Specimens sent were too dry on arrival to make much of, but there 
was clearly a fungus attacking the base of the seedling and the lower 
part to bore elevated masses of wood of tissue and Epidermis, but 
no trace of fructification was to be seen. 
He writes “ I am sorry to say that the trial I made with the 2,100 
seedlings you sent me proved a failure. The seedlings arrived here 
in good order and condition and every' one of them was looking 
healthy, but though they were watered for the first day till I got 
sufficient rain only 40 per cent, survived of which many died after- 
wards. I may state that they were planted in the open without shade. 
Rubber seeds 1 had received previously a large quantity of, which 
were planted out in nurseries. I made trials with covered and 
uncovered nurseries. 
