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Jamaica, whose contribution was temporarily reduced to £50 in 1921-1922, is paying a full subscription of £125 this year. Otherwise there is no alteration in the amount of Government grants.
In Appendix I the actual receipts and expenditure for the half-year are given. The receipts are low owing to the small number of contributions paid in during the period covered. The expenditure is normal except under Apparatus and Furniture, where it is above normal owing to payment of a bill for furniture supplied by the Office of Works amounting to £179 18s. 7d. This is the estimated sum of £200 referred to in my last half-yearly report* as due for work done in 1921 out of the grant for furniture sanctioned at the Fourth General Meeting of the Managing Committee. The bill was not received until last June.
The general financial position of the Bureau, as shown in Appendix II, continues to be good. We have been able to meet all expenditure incurred up to the present without entrenching on our reserve fund, and though our margin of income over expenditure is likely to decrease with incremental increases of salaries it remains sufficient for the present.
Staff. Dr. G. R. Bisby left to resume his appointment as Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology at the Manitoba Agricultural College, Winnipeg, at the end of September. During his year at the Bureau he showed great ability and energy, and it is much to be regretted that the better prospects in America in this branch of science led to his resignation. As the Committee is aware, Mr. S. P. Wiltshire was appointed to succeed him, and joined at the beginning of October. Like Dr. Bisby, his chief work will be to assist me in the publication of the Review and to carry out cultural and systematic studies of parasitic fungi.
Publications. The first volume of the Review of Applied Mycology is approach- ing completion. The printers' strike delayed the October part, which was not dis- tributed until the beginning of November, but all the other numbers were punctually issued. The Oxford University Press is proving very satisfactory in this and other respects. No difficulty has so far been experienced in our doing the publishing work with our own staff. Attempts to secure advertisements failed, and the agents who were consulted advised delaying until the Review is better known and trade is more prosperous. The total distribution amounts to 468 copies, of which 257 are supplied free to contributing Dominions and Colonies, 133 are subscriptions, and 78 are exchanges against other publications. We continue to get subscriptions at a fairly steady rate. The amount received under this head from January to September was £48 16s. 2d., and 44 new subscribers have been registered in October and November, so that our total receipts for the year should be about £75. The value of the exchanges received is also considerable, and they include a number of publications which we could not afford to subscribe for and yet must examine for abstracting. Some of these are not available elsewhere in London, while even in regard to those that we could see in other libraries, experience has shown that it is far more satis- factory to have the abstracting done in the Bureau under the eye of the editor or his assistant. I hope to work up to 200 exchanges, as there would be an enormous saving of time and labour if we could get that number of the journals that publish myco- logical papers dealt with on our own premises.
As stated in my last half-yearly report, the number of pages per issue with which we commenced, namely, 32, was soon found to be insufficient, and it was increased to 40 in June. As we have extended our reading this number has again proved inadequate, and the October number consisted of 48 pages. The volume for the will be 456 pages exclusive of the index.
year
The printers' bills for the volume will be about £474, the cost of distribution will be about £35, and we have allowed £100 for the index. This gives a total of £609, against which we have estimated receipts of £75, leaving a net deficit of £534 on the first volume (January to December, 1922). Our estimated deficit under these heads for the current financial year (1st April, 1922, to 31st March, 1923), was £560. but this will probably be slightly exceeded as the first three numbers of Vol. II will probably be 48-page numbers, and the bills for them will fall due before next April. I believed that I was correctly interpreting the wishes of the Committee by increasing the size of the Review in order to keep pace with current literature, even though it will cost rather more than the original estimate, instead of reducing the scope of the abstracts with a view to keeping within what was admittedly a rough figure. In any case we have savings under other heads, notably "Translations," which will amply cover any
* No. 68. + No. 153 in Miscellaneous No. 321,
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excess under printing. I have not yet been able to arrange for abstracts of papers written in Japanese to be prepared in Japan, though I hope to do so shortly, and as the item "Translations" in our estimates is chiefly for this purpose there will be a corresponding saving.
The work in connexion with the Review in its first year has tended to swamp other work in the Bureau, but the abstractors are steadily improving, and (though Dr. Bisby's loss has delayed this) the assistant for publications will, I hope, be able in a few months to relieve me of a good deal of the revision of the abstracts, which is the really heavy part of the work. It must be remembered that the abstractors are linguists without any regular scientific training so that it is expecting a great deal to imagine that their work can be free from mistakes. However, so far, we have not had a single complaint of misrepresentation from any author, which is the best testimony I can give to a remarkably efficient staff.
General work of the Bureau.-The principal work included under this heading is the examination of specimens sent in by overseas mycologists and other correspon- dents, and the supplying of information and literature on various aspects of applied mycology. The number of specimens sent in continues to increase, parcels having been received from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, India, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, the Seychelles, Gold Coast, Trinidad, and Barbados. These included several new records of important diseases. In Kenya, for instance, the flax disease caused by Polyspora lini, à new genus and species of parasitic fungi recently described in Ireland, was found to occur in addition to the flax wilt due to Fusarium lini already known. From Assam the recently described root disease of rubber caused by Kretzschmaria micropus in Ceylon and Malaya was identified in tea. The fungus isolated from plum trees affected with silver leaf in South Africa was found, after submission to experts in this country, to be Stereum purpureum, the same organism which causes the disease in England. The presence of this fungus in South Africa was previously doubtful. Specimens of an apple leaf-spotting fungus were sent from New Zealand for identification, and were found to agree with a fungus usually known as Phyllosticta pirina parasitic on the apple in Europe and America; there is some doubt as to the real identity of this fungus, and inquiries are still being continued in regard to it. The identity of various sclerotial fungi of the type of Rhizoctonia, received from India and Egypt, is still under study. One of the commonest forms is stated by Professor Taubenhaus of Texas, to whom we sent specimens, to agree with Sclerotium bataticola described by him some years ago as a sweet-potato parasite. In India and Egypt it attacks a large number of crops and has been under study for a number of years, but it was not previously suspected that it was known in any other country. From Zanzibar a series of fungi found associ- ated with the disease that is destroying the clove plantations there was received, but none proved to be a known parasite. A very interesting collection of parasites of cacao and cola came from the Gold Coast. In several of these cases outside assist- ance (chiefly from the United States) was required and was freely given. Mr. Mason is responsible for much of the work of examining specimens and has been most useful. À considerable number of cultures of species of Diplodia, chiefly parasites or suspected parasites of plants of economic importance in the tropical parts of the Empire, were sent for critical study to Dr. Shear of Washington, who is monograph- ing the genus. Dr. Bisby carried out cultural studies of some species of Fusarium from Indian potatoes, and continued his monographic studies of the Hysteriales. An attempt is being made, in collaboration with Dr. Manns of Newark, Delaware, to establish the real identity of the root rot and scab fungus of maize at present known as Cephalosporium sacchari. Cultural studies of some entomogenous fungi were
continued.
During the period under review the Bureau was consulted regarding several serious outbreaks of plant disease in different parts of the Empire. Amongst these was the outbreak of withertip disease of limes in Dominica which threatens to destroy the chief industry of the island, banana wilt or "Panama" disease, which continues to cause great damage in the West Indies, the "bunchy top" disease of bananas in Australia which is leading to their cultivation being abandoned in certain districts, diseases of coco-nuts in the Seychelles and West Indies, and diseases of sugar-cane, fruit trees, and cereals in various localities. Advice on legislation against plant diseases was given to India and Kenya.
The card index of the literature of parasitic fungi maintained by the Federal Horticultural Board in Washington is now being copied, a sum of £100 having