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the banana in this area and in parts of Queensland. Subsequently a couple of days were spent at Brisbane with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and in dis- cussing cotton diseases with the Cotton Adviser, Lieutenant-Colonel G. Evans, C.I.E. Prior to sailing I had four days in Perth, which were spent chiefly with the Botanist and Plant Pathologist of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. W. M. Carne, in his laboratory and in visiting some of the citrus orchards of Western Australia and the market gardens round Perth. The opportunity was also taken of seeing the Forest Products Laboratory at Perth, a Federal institution to which I found we could be of some assistance. South Australia was not visited except in passing through in the train, as I am already in touch with the work in that State through Mr. Samuel's visit to the Bureau already mentioned. During and after the Congress I met all the mycologists and plant pathologists working in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, visited all the laboratories in which they are working, and saw something of Australian plant diseases in the field. The severity of the latter is more or less equal to that in the United States, and is greater than in Europe, as was to be expected in view of the recent opening up of the country to settled agriculture: orchard spraying, for instance, is much more important in Australia than in Europe, and total destruction of crops from disease, as in the case of bananas referred to above, more frequent.

Of the Congress itself not much need be said, as a full report of the proceedings will be published. I read three papers in the Agricultural section and attended a number of meetings in that and the Botanical section. The mycologists present included Dr. Stakman from the United States, a leading authority on cereal diseases, Dr. Bryce, who has done much work on rubber and banana diseases in Ceylon, Messrs. Brittlebank and Adams from Victoria, Drs. Darnell-Smith and Noble, and Messrs. Waterhouse, North, and Hynes from New South Wales, and Mr. Tryon from Queensland. Some of the other agricultural and botanical dele- gates from Japan, the Dutch East Indies, Hawaii, the Philippines, and New Zealand were also interested in the subject. We had a very valuable joint session with the Entomological and Forestry sections on plant quarantine regulations, and the joint excursions with other sections arranged by the Congress executive were of much interest. No pains were spared to enable us to see as much as possible of the country in the time at our disposal. We were given free passes on all the Victorian and Queensland railways and for thirty miles round Sydney, while the longer excursions in New South Wales and across the Continent to Perth and all the jour- neys by motor car were arranged free of charge to us. Nothing could have exceeded the hospitality shown to the members of the Congress, not only in the centres (Mel- bourne and Sydney) where it met, but also in the country towns and farms visited. To Professor R. D. Watt, the Professor of Agriculture in Sydney University, I owe a special debt of gratitude for the great trouble he took, as Secretary to the Agri- cultural section of the Congress in Sydney, to enable me to see everything I wanted of the more interesting crop diseases of New South Wales. The staff of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company also took an immense amount of trouble to show the sugar- cane industry of New South Wales, while all the Departments of Agriculture gave us every assistance in their power. On the botanical side we were taken over the Melbourne Botanical Gardens by Mr. Laidlaw, the acting Superintendent, Mr. Patton of Melbourne University arranged several excursions to places of botanical interest in Victoria, Professor Lawson and Mr. Maiden at Sydney did the same for New South Wales, while Mr. White, Government Botanist, Queensland, showed me the Gardens and Herbarium at Brisbane. The action taken by the British Govern- ment in sending four official delegates, besides the eight or ten other delegates from England, was evidently much appreciated by the Congress executive and Australian scientific men generally, and there was a marked desire very successfully fulfilled -to make our visit both pleasant and profitable. I do not think it is too much to say that the Congress was the big event of the year in Australia, and that the steps taken to make it a success would be hard to equal in effectiveness in any other country.

The

In all three Dominions visited it was evident that if the Bureau were to restrict its activities to aiding the official workers attached to Government Departments it would leave a considerable proportion of the mycological work uninfluenced. work in progress not only in the Colleges, but also by private companies, such as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, is of general value to the country so long as it is made available by publication. I did not hesitate to offer the assistance of the Bureau to all the mycologists I met, and I hope the Committee will approve of this

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At the same time it is right that when we ask for contributions towards our expenses we should explain that Government Departments are not the only agencies making use of us for the benefit of the agriculture of the country, but that we are prepared to help all research and field workers in our subject, and are, in fact, already doing a good deal in this direction, chiefly for the Universities.

One result of the tour will certainly be a considerable increase in our work from the Dominions. Canada will, I think, always look to the United States, where crops and conditions are so similar and the fungus flora is practically identical, for most of the assistance they require, but I was told at Winnipeg and Vancouver that the Review alone was well worth more than the present Canadian contribution. In Australia and New Zealand we are assured of strong support from all the working mycologists. They are much more isolated from their fellow workers in the subject than is the case in Canada, where not only are the numbers greater but there are frequent opportunities for meeting other workers from the United States as well as from Canada. In New Zealand, on the other hand, Mr. Cunningham told me that I was the first professional mycologist, except Dr. Curtis, that he had ever met, while in Western Australia the isolation is almost as great and library facilities are so poor that the Bureau can be of great assistance. In Australia, and to a lesser extent in Canada, the facilities offered by the Bureau were by no means fully under- stood, and the fact that we should be regarded as colleagues (being in part paid by the Commonwealth and Dominion for that purpose) was not properly appreciated. It had not occurred to the Western Australia Department of Agriculture to make use of our staff to report on the condition of their citrus fruits, which they under- stand, from the Agent-General's reports, are reaching England with an undue pro- portion of rotten fruit, though the fungi responsible for the rotting are not known. This is work that we can quite well do, and Mr. Wickens, the chief of the fruit division of the Department, told me that precise information on this point would be of the utmost value to him.

Besides the three Dominions visited, we had a little time in the two Crown Colonies, Fiji and Ceylon. In the former Mr. Veitch, Entomologist to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, took us by car for about four hours in the vicinity of Suva and gave a most interesting account of the Company's work in controlling sugar-cane diseases and pests. The former are now under practically complete control, which can hardly be said of any other sugar-cane country so far as I know. In Ceylon Mr. Stockdale, Director of Agriculture, and Mr. Petch, Government Botanist and Mycologist, met us at Colombo and drove us to Peradeniya where we saw the new laboratories and the work in progress.

We had also six hours ashore in Honolulu as guests of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association scientific staff and had full opportunities of seeing the work of what is probably the foremost sugar experiment station in the world. The cost of this station has averaged about £40,000 a year of recent years, but I gathered that the planters who finance it are satisfied that it is well worth the money. The experience gained of the good work done by this Association and by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company has shown me that there is considerable room for successful private enterprise in the study of the cause and control of diseases of particular crops, though I am still convinced that where such enterprise overlaps the work of a Government Department, as in the case of work on rubber diseases in Malaya, it leads to waste and inefficiency.

During my absence Mr. S. P. Wiltshire took charge of the work of the Bureau and carried it on most efficiently.

In conclusion I would like to express my thanks to the Managing Committee for enabling me to make this most interesting tour, and to say that I am quite certain that the value to the Bureau of the first-hand experience of local conditions gained, and the personal touch with our overseas colleagues established, is well worth the money spent from the Bureau funds.

20th November, 1923.

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E. J. BUTLER.