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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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funds has recently been circulated by the Secretary of State to the various Govern- ments in the Empire, and it is hoped that the position of the Bureau for the next five years will thus be definitely assured.

Appendix I to this report shows the receipts and expenditure of the Bureau for the half-year and Appendix II the present financial position. The receipts for the half-year are unusually large, as several Government grants due for the preced- ing year were paid in during the period under review. The expenditure includes two non-recurring items, namely, the balance due on account of Mr. Wiltshire's visit to the West Indies during the last financial year, and certain expenses (£35 less than the estimate) in connexion with the Imperial Mycological Conference held during the summer, the two amounting to just over £200. On the other hand, nothing was paid on account of the Director's pension contribution to the India Office, pending the issue of new regulations governing such payments, and the whole of this charge for the current financial year will fall in the second half-year. The charge has been slightly raised and is estimated at £240 per annum instead of £228 as hitherto. The increase in the general work of the Bureau has led to increased expenditure on such items as stationery, postage, and the like, and it appears probable that the estimate of £150 for "General Expenses" during the current year will be exceeded. A sum of £50 was paid to the Director in connexion with the raising of his incremental rate of salary from £25 to £50 per annum.

Changes in the abstracting staff will lead to a slight saving under this section of the salary account. The net result of these changes is that the expenditure for the past half year and that estimated for the rest of the year, less receipts from sales of the Review, totals £5,066, instead of the estimate of £5.012 made last March. This is still slightly less than our estimated income of £5,075, but allows for no unforeseen expenditure. Any such expenditure can, however, be met without difficulty from the Bureau's surplus assets, which, as will be seen from Appendix II, are expected to amount to approximately £6,300 at the end of the current year.

Staff.

The appointment of Mr. J. H. Milanes as abstractor was terminated on 30th September. To replace him the Bureau has secured the services of Miss M, L. Yeo, one of the staff of the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome, who has had considerable experience in this class of work. Miss Yeo cannot join for some months owing to the period of notice required under her present agreement, and arrangements have been made for temporarily carrying où the work during the interval.

Publications.

The index to Vol. II of the Review was issued in June and cost £89 to print. It contains about 8,000 entries, which gives an average of about thirteen to the page of text.

The monthly parts have been each of sixty-four pages during the period under review and a considerable part of the arrears which had accumulated from the previous year have been worked off. We are, however, still some way from the very desirable position of being able to include in any one month's issue every original paper received during the previous month. The circulation continues to increase slowly, and to judge by reports received the Review is steadily proving more useful to the mycologists in the overseas parts of the Empire for whom it is primarily intended. At the Imperial Mycological Conference a resolution to this effect was passed, and the opinion was definitely expressed that it would be a pity to curtail the length of the abstracts, which was regarded as one of the most useful features of the Review, on the grounds of economy.

General Work of the Bureau.

Specimens were received for examination from sixteen Dominions and Colonjes besides numerous inquiries for information from practically all the contributing Governments and a good many which have not, up to the present, subscribed any- thing towards the cost of the Bureau

The inquiry into the identity of the fungus causing blue mould of tobacco in Australia was continued in collaboration with the specialists in Switzerland and the Argentine with whom we put the Melbourne workers in touch. The latest advice from Melbourne suggests that the fungus may prove to be one not hitherto encountered elsewhere. An interesting fungus parasitic on tobacco in the Cold Coast was identified as Pythium apbanidermatum,

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Specimens of a coco-nut disease have been received at intervals during the past two years from the Seychelles. The last batch, received in June, enabled the disease to be identified as bud rot, caused by Phytophthora palmivora. This fungus is the cause of the epidemic outbreaks of bud rot of palms in India, the Philippines, parts of the West Indies, and probably Fiji. There appears to be a considerable differ- ence of opinion as to the amount of damage it is causing in the Seychelles and the need for drastic remedial measures such as have been found necessary elsewhere. Full information has been supplied to the local authorities regarding the history of the disease in India and the methods and results of the campaign against it which was carried out in Madras.

Further evidence has been obtained that the Panama disease of bananas has reached the Canary Islands, where it is attacking the species, Musa cavendishii, previously supposed to be immune. Mr. Dunlop, late of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, visited the Islands on behalf of the United Fruit Company and brought back specimens to the Bureau. Mr. Wiltshire has isolated the causal organism (which, as stated in previous reports, agrees closely with Fusarium cubense, the cause of Panama disease) from these specimens and sent it to Mr. Dunlop, who proposes to test it on healthy bananas in Panama or some neigh- bouring area and compare its effects with those of F. cubense. A second interesting banana disease was brought back by Mr. Dunlop, and Mr. Mason has determined the apparent cause as Stachylidium theobroma, a fungus that has not been previ- ously cultivated and is not known to cause disease. Mr. Mason is continuing the study of this fungus in culture.

Arrangements were made to assist the Western Australian Department of Agriculture in their shipments of oranges to England, and experimental consign- ments were examined by Mr. Wiltshire at Covent Garden in August. The consignments were treated and packed under the supervision of Mr. Wickens, the Chief of the Fruit Division at Perth, duplicates being kept in cold store at that end in some cases, and were opened in Mr. Wiltshire's presence. The percentage damage was worked out and specimens brought to the Bureau to determine the cause of the rots. Work of this nature takes up much time, but it is reported to have proved very useful to the authorities at Perth. One of the causes of rotting discovered was a fungus which Mr. Carne, the Mycologist at Perth, thinks is a new species of Phytophthora and which is an active parasite of the leaves and twigs in the orchard, though it does not seem to attack the fruit on the tree. The season's work on these citrus shipments has already shown that dipping in copper sulphate before packing does no good.

Cotton diseases were sent in from Nyasaland, Nigeria, and the Sudan. These have shown that one of the fungi of internal boll disease, as known in the West Indies. is prevalent both in East and West Africa. A leaf spotting of a distinctive type was sent from Nigeria and a local investigation of the disease has been recommended.

A new outbreak of the grey mould disease of the castor oil plant, which occurred in Mozambique, was referred from the Imperial Institute. The fungus, Sclerotinia ricini, is believed to be endemic in India, whence it was introduced to the United States in 1917 or 1918 with the large consignments of Indian seed that were intended to provide a crop large enough to meet the demand for aeroplane lubricating oil which arose during the War. The disease has almost prevented the growth of this crop in America, and it has apparently reached Mozambique from India in the same manner as it reached the United States.

Amongst the workers at the Bureau during the half-year were Mr. G. H. Cunningham, Mycologist, New Zealand, for about six weeks before and after the Mycological Conference, Misa E. J. Welsford, Mycologist, Zanzibar, and Dr. E. M. Doidge. Assistant Chief, Division of Botany, Union of South Africa, at various times up to July.

British Empire Exhibition.

The exhibit arranged by the Bureau in co-operation with various other institu- tions was visited by the Association of Economic Biologists and the members of the Mycological Conference, and appears to have been appreciated by scientific visitors though too technical to attract the general public. In spite of its limited appeal it probably was useful in calling attention to the destruction of tropical crops caused by disease. An effort will be made to prevent the collection from being broken up, but nothing final can be suggested until it is known whether the Exhibition will be re-opened next year. Thanks are due to a number of the overseas departments and