100 
soon Tae ready for disr^osal in accordance with the 
general instructions in your letter. Some of the 
rice samples are pretty Taadly infested with sev- 
eral species of grain weevils, one of which ac- 
cording to the entomologists, appears to Tae new 
in this country. Under the regulations of the 
Federal Horticultural Board it is necessary to 
treat all material coming from regions v/here 
citrus grows or is likely to grow, so that ma- 
terials sent in from any warm section of the 
world must undergo the prescribed treatments 
for insects and also the socalled precautionary 
treatments against citrus canker. When it comes 
to treating large quantities of mustard seed, 
for example, or calabage or radish seed, we have 
difficulty in carrying out the treatments and 
at the same time not injuring the material. 
In a good many of the seeds that come from 
China, especially seed like mustard and perilla, 
or any seed that is likely to be threshed or 
cleaned on the ground, considerable quantities 
of sclerotia are frequently found. These scle- 
rotia are somewhat puzzling to the pathologists, 
as it is difficult to understand why they should 
be so abundant. The last lot of mustard seed you 
sent contained considerable quantities of the 
sclerotia. Professor Whetzel, of Cornell', is 
spending the winter here and the sclerotia are 
being turned over to him. He has been working 
on this group for several years. 
I note v/hat you say regarding Professor 
Reimer and his securing pear stocks. Prof. Reimer 
must have spent considerable time in Japan. A 
short time ago there was published as an Asso- 
ciated Press dispatch a cable from Tokio giving 
a somev;hat remarkable statement regarding Prof. 
Reimer and his work. We have not yet been able 
to determine whether the weirdness of the dispatch 
was due to the imagination of some newspaper re- 
porter or v/hether it originated from other causes. 
The dispatch stated that Prof. Reimer had dis- 
covered, at some point in Japan, just where I do 
not recall, the original home of the blight-proof 
near. ¥/e figured that what he had probably found 
was a large plant of the true Pyrus ussuriensis . 
Ever since our visit to Professor Reimer 's station 
last fall we have been accumulating information 
and data on the pear, with particular reference 
to the best manner of assembling, propagating, 
and distributing blight-resistant or supposedly 
December 31, 1917. 
