388
UTTICE | Reference :-
885/26
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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about 15 per page.
An indexer was employed temporarily at a cost of £42 17s. 2d., while the estimated cost of printing the Title-page and Index number is about £65, and the total expenditure on making, printing, and distributing the index is now estimated at £113, instead of the rough estimate of £100 made last year. As the value of a journal of this nature depends in the long run on the quality of the index, I do not think we can hope to do it more cheaply.
With a monthly number consisting of 48 pages we are about keeping page with the output of work requiring notice, though we have not yet obtained access to quite all the publications requiring examination. Some 250 separate periodicals contained papers suitable for abstracting, but as many of these appear monthly and some even weekly, while a proportion have nothing worth noticing in any given year, the total number of parts examined was very much higher.
Subscriptions continue to increase slowly and numbered 156 on 1st April. The total cost of printing and distributing the 12 numbers issued from April, 1922 to March, 1923, was £532 58. 1d. and the Index number will bring the cost up to about £600 (the figures in Appendix II only show the bills actually paid within the financial year). As Volume II will probably be larger than Volume I, I have estimated its cost for printing and distribution at-about £650.
General Work of the Bureau.--The number of scientific inquiries received continues to increase at a rapid rate, a gratifying feature being the increase in the number from Africa as a result of closer personal touch with the workers there, arising from their visits to the Bureau when in England on leave or otherwise. Amongst those who actually worked in the laboratory may be mentioned Mr. H. R. Briton-Jones, Mycologist to the Ministry of Agriculture, Egypt, who spent about two months working on cultures of fungi that attack cotton, and writing a report on Egyptian cotton diseases, and Mr. Ältson, who spent about six weeks prior to taking up his appointment as Assistant Botanist and Mycologist, British Guiana.
Advantage was taken of Mr. Briton-Jones's presence to try to settle once for all the identity of the small Rhizoctonia that causes so much damage to cotton and other plants in Egypt, India, and probably throughout the East. As mentioned in my last report Professor Taubenhaus of Texas, to whom we sent specimens last year, believed it to be identical with the fungus described by him as Sclerotium bataticola on sweet potatoes. Specimens of sweet potato tubers affected with the disease caused by this fungus were obtained from Professor Taubenhaus, and the fungus isolated and grown in parallel cultures with authentic strains of the Indian and Egyptian cotton parasites. They were all found to be identical. Work has been carried on with this fungus in India for over ten years and in Egypt for two or three without its identity being determined; and Mr. Briton-Jones was on the point of naming it as a new species when the suggestion came from India that an attempt might be made to see if it was known in America or the West Indies, with the satisfactory result mentioned. There is a good deal of published work on this parasite in India (where it has not yet been reported on sweet potato, though it • attacks many other plants) and in the United States (where it has not yet been found on cotton), and there is no doubt that much of this work will now be of mutual benefit. The matter is mentioned at some length, as it is an excellent example of what I personally believe to be about the most useful work that the Bureau can do.
A second cotton inquiry of importance arose from an outbreak of suspected. angular leaf spot and black-arm, both diseases due to the attack of Bacterium malvacearum, in the Sudan, followed by the isolation of a bacillus capable of repro- ducing the disease, by Mr. Massey, Government Botanist, Khartoum. Our examination of his specimens showed that the symptoms agreed with those caused by the organism mentioned, and we sent him a large batch of publications giving details of methods of isolation and control. On receipt of his cultures we have grown the organism here and sent on fresh cultures to the Cotton Diseases Office of the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington for verification, but have not yet learned the result. We have recently received a report that this disease has been imported into Queens- land, but measures have been taken to eradicate it at the quarantine station.
An obscure disease of cotton in Berber Province has been under study by Mr. Massey, who has sent us numerous specimens and reports. It is a root rot with which a Rhizoctonia appears to be sometimes associated, but no good evidence that the trouble was caused by fungi could be found on some of the specimens sent. present we are inclined to think that soil conditions, allied to those that produce
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leaf scorch of fruit trees in this country, are responsible, but much more work will be required on the spot before the true cause is ascertained.
Specimens and paintings of cotton boll rots prevalent in the Sudan, Tanganyika, and Nyasaland have been examined, but so far the type of boll rot directly due to fungi and bacteria has not been found, and the cases seem to be secondary effects of insect punctures.
A culture of moulds obtained from cocoa was sent by Mr. Bunting, Assistant Director for Research and Mycologist, Gold Coast, for identification. The culture proved to be a mixture of two species of Aspergillus, which were isolated and grown as pure strains here and sent on to Professor Thom of Washington, the foremost authority on these fungi. They were named by him, and further cultures were then submitted to Mr. Buddin, University College, Reading, who kindly offered to test their enzymatic activity. A full and very valuable report was received from Mr. Buddin and forwarded to the Gold Coast where, if it can be shown that these fungi are responsible for the deterioration of cocoa, the information will be of great Various other specimens of interest were received from the Gold Coast for naming.
use.
From South Africa, Gold Coast and Fiji we have had a series of interesting fungi parasitic on animals, chiefly insects, and Mr. Mason has given a good deal of time to this difficult branch of mycology. There appear to be very few students of these forms on comparative lines in any part of the world at present, and we are aiming at getting a knowledge of as many types as possible through cultural studies.
Mr. Small, Mycologist in Uganda, has sent a number of fungi for naming, chiefly parasitic on cultivated plants. From Kenya we have had an interesting sorghum disease, caused by a fungus previously known only from India and the Philippines, Miss Welsford has sent a further set of specimens of the clove diseases which are causing such serious damage in Zanzibar; so far all the fungi concerned appear to be new to science. A curious and destructive disease of ground nut was sent in from Tanganyika and found to be one already studied by Dutch and German workers in the tropics, but on which there appears to be no English literature.
We continue to receive a number of tea diseases of minor importance from the Mycologist to the Indian Tea Association, Mr. Tunstall, all of them of obscure origin which local workers have not yet been able to elucidate, but some of which we should be able to get worked out in time. Large collections of parasitic fungi have been sent from Pusa for naming, and we have had a number of species of Diplodia from India, the Federated Malay States, and elsewhere, for forwarding to a specialist in the United States who is working on these fungi.
From New Zealand several inquiries regarding fungi attacking fruit trees have been received and specimens have been sent in for identification. We have been able to help also by examining type specimens of New Zealand fungi preserved at Kew to elucidate certain doubtful points referred to us. The only Australian Departments that are making use of the Bureau so far are the Victoria and Queens- land Departments of Agriculture, from which we have had several inquiries. One result of my visit there this summer should be to remedy this, as there must be many ways in which we can help the other States. Mr. Samuel, Plant Pathologist to the South Australia Department, is working in the Bureau at the time of writing and will get us into better touch with that part of the country. From the Fiji Islands we continue to receive specimens frequently, mostly of already known diseases.
In view of the great interest taken in the use of dusts instead of sprays for the control of plant diseases in North America the Bureau has been in touch with various makers of spraying materials in this country, and trials of some prepara- tions are being arranged for in India.
The first sum of £100 remitted to Washington, for the purpose of copying the host index of parasitic fungi maintained by the Federal Horticultural Board, has been expended, and a further remittance is being sent out of the amount of £200 sanctioned for this purpose at the Fifth General Meeting.
E. J. BUTLER.
3rd May, 1923.
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