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21 
expenditures among the various accounts, how much of a barrel of 
alcohol, for example, or the cost of a seine, or of a pound of pow- 
der should be charged under each head. The only practicable way 
has been to charge to each account such expenditures as properly 
belong there and nowhere else, and to divide the expenditures made 
for two or more purposes among the corresponding accounts, 
according to the conditions of the funds and the necessities of the 
work. For this reason I would suggest that in future the field and 
general expenses of the Laboratory be provided for by the appro- 
priation of a lump sum, and that the expenses of the preparation 
of material for the different institutions dependent upon us, and 
for the different classes of work required of us, be provided for 
separately, by different items of the appropriation. I give, here- 
with, an exhibit of the expenditures for the year closing June 30, 
1880, classified according to the items of the appropriation, and 
‘showing the purposes for which the expenditures were made under 
each account. [For Financial Report, see page 127.| 
WORK FOR THE FUTURE. 
_ In addition to the various enterprises now in hand, which it is 
‘proposed to carry steadily forward to completion, two subjects press 
upon us for immediate consideration—those of parasitic fungi, and 
‘the parasites of the domestic animals. Certainly the agricultural 
and horticultural interests of the State are subject to no more 
‘serious drain than that caused by diseases due to parasitic fungi. 
Hundreds of thousands of dollars each year are lost through our 
ignorance of the causes of these diseases and the laws of life of 
‘the plants which produce them, and especially through our total 
‘ignorance of any practical means of controlling them. That the 
problem thus presented is not insoluble is shown by the recent and 
‘most important discovery, by Prof. Burrill, that the pear-bhghts 
‘and the yellows of the peach, and other similar destructive dis- 
‘eases, are due to the action of bacteria; and since those diseases 
‘of man and other animals, which are undoubtedly cause by similar 
‘organisms, have been found more or less subject to human control, 
‘there is every reason for encouragement in the practical investiga- 
‘tion of the corresponding diseases of plants. Believing this to be 
‘the most important biological subject now before us, so far as 
relates to the economical interests of the people. I have taken 
“measures for active work in this department. The most essential 
part of the literature of the subject has already been ordered from 
_Kurope, and the collection of our fungi has been actively prose- 
cuted during the last three years. We have thus accumulated what 
is probably by far the largest collection of this class of plants in 
the western States. We have now four hundred species of Hlinois 
fungi in the collection, which have been determined by Prof. Peck, 
of the New York State Museum, at Albany, and about one hundred 
Bnd fifty species whose names have not yet been received. From 
North America, outside the State, we have about one thousand 
, amed species of these plants, and in addition to these something 
ver fifteen hundred species of foreign fungi. The condition of the 
ollection is not, at present, such as to enable us to give exact 
1a 
