New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 105 
apparently sound tissue of the rutabaga. Both cultures were 
obtained from the same plant. 
The cultures Cornell I, III and V were isolated in October, 
1904, from two turnips from an experimental field at the Cor- 
nell Agricultural Experiment Station, cultures I and III being 
from the same turnip. | | 
Thus this collection of cultures represents Kngland, Hol- 
land, Germany, District of Columbia, Canada, Vermont and 
widely separated points in ‘the State of New York. They were 
derived from turnip, iris, rape, calla lily, cauliflower and 
cabbage. ' 
METHODS OF WORK. 
On undertaking this comparative study in July, 1902, the 
first step was an exchange of cultures which had been isolated 
at the two Stations and a determination of their cultural 
characteristics. The media used in this study, with certain 
exceptions, were prepared in accordance with the suggestions 
of the report of September, 1897,1° of the committee of the 
American Public Health Association on standard laboratory 
methods. The reaction of the media used at the New York 
laboratory was uniformly 1.5 per ct. normal acid to phenolph- 
thalein while that used at the Vermont laboratory was the 
same during the earlier years of the study and later was made 
neutral to this indicator, as it was found that the organisms 
erew equally well, if not better, in a neutral medium. In 
the earlier work at the Vermont laboratory lean beef was 
used in preparing the media, but the resulting presence of 
muscle sugar in the broth led to the substitution of Liebig’s 
meat extract. At the New York laboratory this meat extract 
was uniformly used except on rare occasions when beef was 
used as a check. 
If these variations in the technique at the two laboratories 
had resulted in discordant results they would have been re- 
grettable, but, as the results will show, such was not the case. 
On the other hand, the presence of these variations in the 
technique makes it all the more probable that the results here 
*Report of the committee on standard methods for water analysis. 
A. P. H. A. Proc. (1897), 28: 56-100. 1898. 
