Begin Page 1. Departmental News Letter December 10, 1919 The year's work is again in full swing with a crowded university and a crowded plant pathology department. All previous records are surpassed with a total enrollment of about 7000 in all colleges. The College of Agriculture has 925 of these and our department twenty three graduate and three undergraduate majors and six graduate minors, the largest enrollment to date. These include three men from parts remote: Ivar Jorstad, a graduate of Christiana University and official plant pathologist from Norway, who is commissioned by his government to spend one semester here studying our methods. He is using every opportunity here and giving us many interesting personal glimpses of European pathological and mycological problems; K. Nakata, a Japanese professor from the University of Kuishi, Japan and N.G. Teodoro, a Philippine student sent here by his government to study two years at Wisconsin and one year in Washington, D.C., so that he may assume the responsibilities of official plant pathologist when he returns. He has been associated more or less with Professor Otto Reinking at the University of Santa Cruz, Laguna. Mr. Reinking writes us quite frequently and seems to be happily located. Last May and June he spent on a collecting trip in southern China and Fomosa. Mr. Atanasoff, our Bulgarian delegate of the last two years, returned to his country this autumn and is beginning his work as a plant pathologist at the agricultural experiment station at Sofia, Bulgaria. He writes encouragingly of the prospects and plans for the future of the station when normal conditions are resumed and adds, "The present government of Bulgaria...has extensive plans for many reforms. It is planning to make the Sofia station into a big agriculture experimental institute with all possible branches and facilities. The three papers published at the three stations are to be united into a single publication which is to be the scientific organ of the experimental work in Bulgaria like the Journal of Agricultural Research in America." Mr. M.T. Binney was married last summer. He is Mrs. Binney are located in Chicago where he is now carrying rather heavy responsibilities with the Albert Dickinson Company the largest seed and grain concern in the world. They employ 2500 men. Mr. Binney says, "My work consists of seed examination and grading...We import large quantities from Europe and Asia. In the examination and grading of the seed I have to apply first the various seed laws of the United States and when imported or exported we get into direct touch with foreign bond officers and test stations." End Page 1. Begin Page 2. Mr. B.L. Richards took his Ph.D. in October after a strenuous summer with his potato Rhizoctonia problem. He left almost immediately for Utah where he is associate botanist in the state agricultural college and experiment station at Logan. His duties include research work on their sugar beet problems and teaching. Following a survey of the sugar beet districts this fall he wrote, "I find the sugar beet disease situation here is critical. An itneresting problem lies in its peculiar relation to our climatic conditions here in the intermountain region." They are having a splendid new building which is to be fitted with the best equipment available, including a cold storage plant of ten-ton capacity which will give them temperatures ranging from 0 degrees F on up. We recently received an interesting letter from R.D. Rands, Java, written while on a vacation at the cottage and laboratory of the Mountain Botanical Garden, Tjibodes, Java, ("elevation 5,000 feet"). He writes, "It is an interesting change to live in the temperature zone again where a fire is necessary for comfort every evening. "He expected to start soon on a three weeks rubber disease survey trip through the East coast of Sumatra." Miss Charlotte Elliott is still in Dr. E.F. Smith's laboratory in Washington, D.C. where she has just put the finishing touches on her oat blight manuscript. When we last heard from her she was spending her "leave" in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two other happy summer marriages to be recorded, viz, that of Dr. Eubanks Carsner and Dr. J.C. Gilman. Mr. and Mrs. Gilman are living at Ames Iowa; Mr. and Mrs. Carsner at Riverside California. So many research problems are underway in our laboratory that space does not permit of detailed discussion. The soil temperature studies in relation to disease of cereals, legumes, cabbage, tomato, etc., are in full swing with constant innovations in matters of materials and methods. Our seminary reports this semester are all dealing with various phases of this subject so that there is abundant opportunity for correlation of methods and results. Dr. Kraus, formerly of Corvallis, Oregon, now Professor of Applied Botany in the Botany Department here at Wisconsin, is devoting himself to physiological problems including an interest in the host reactions and responses to certain environmental conditions imposed in our experiments so that we are hoping that some of the mysteries of these plant reactions may be solved. The latest eventure in temperature relations is being carried out by the cereal laboratory under the direction of Mr. Goss and Mr. McKinney. They have contructed a mammoth cage designed to keep out birds and beasts and other possible "agents of dissemination." The cage covers several square rods sprinked with the soil and wheat stubble from the "take all" fields of Illinois. End Page 2. Begin Page 3. In this infected winter wheat is growing and they hope to determine something definite about infection, symptoms, and over-wintering of this threatening disease. The instructional work is considerably heavier than last year. Mr. Vaughan has about a dozen students in a demonstration course. Professor Jones is lecturing in 101 (general course) in which Dr. Gilbert and Miss Miller have twenty in the laboratory, mostly graduate students. Dr. Keitt gives the lectures in "Methods" and W.B. Tisdale the laboratory. He has two sections of about ten each. The seminary attendance is something like 40 so we meet in the graduate laboratory and have abandoned tea, due to the high cost of living and limited china and silver. Journal Club is well started. We have had two worth while meetings this year. Tuesday night, Dec. 2, we celebrated Professor Jones' birthday anniversary. We think we surprised him because it was three days early. Stunts began at five o'clock, following the seminary program, when Mr. Clayton came in disguised as a news boy and sold papers to certain of the members of the entertainment committee who read portions there from. The editorials, want-ads, and society column all bristled with departmental gossip which, like most gossip, consisted of truths more or less adorned. The crowning feature was the sporting page, edited by Mr. Goss, in which a retreat seminary argumentative debate between Mr. E.E. Clayton and Dr. James Johnson was written up as a prize fight. This is an indication of the enthusiasm that prevails in seminary meetings this year. Following the program we had dinner in the third floor laboratory. Including the faculty and graduate students wives there were fifty six of us, and thanks to said wives, especially Mrs. Vaughan, we had a fine dinner of home boiled ham, escalloped potatoes, apple sauce, individual birthday cakes, ice cream, etc. Changes and additions to our June list of Departmental staff members graduate students and cereal appointments. Plant Pathology Florence Coerper Brown. Head of department of home economics at No. 4 Saffer Court, Urbana, Illinois. She reports a new building and splendid facilities for research. Professor E.M. Gilbert. New a regular member of our staff, associated in teaching the general course (101). He continues to handle the regular courses in mycology in the botany department but has been relieved of his general botany teaching that he may devote part of his time to teaching in the plant pathology classes. End Page 3. Begin Page 4. Ruth G. Bitterman. Formerly a student in the University of Wisconsin botany department, now assistant in plant pathology with responsibilities in editorial work, library, laboratory supplies, etc. A.C. Foster. Fellow. Research problem, downy mildew of cucumber. Mr. Foster is from Alabama and has been associated with Dr. M.T. Cook in New Jersey and Dr. Wolfe at North Carolina. John Gray. Graduate of Leland Stanford, assistant to James Johnson. E.C. Sherwood. Graduate student, working on tomato wilt. Has been USDA extension pathologist for the state of Oklahoma. John Monteith. Horlick scholar. Graduate of Rutgers College, New Jersey, last year with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. G.F. Weber. Graduate student. Field work with cereal department last summer. Formerly captain in the late war and laboratory assistant in State College, South Dakota. C.G. Welles, Graduate student, Cornell graduate, assistant to Professor Wright in bacteriology. James Godkin. Graduate student. Took M.S. in horticulture in Michigan Agricultural College. N.G. Tesdero. Graduate student, University of Loguna Island. Miss E. Moore. Honorary scholar. Formerly head of department of botany at Wellesley College. Mr. K. Nakata. Honorary scholar. Professor of Botany, University of Kuishi, Japan. Mr. Ivar Jorstad. Honorary scholar. Graduate of Christiana University, Norway. Cereal Laboratory R.W. Goss, "take-all" problem with Mr. McKinney. C.S. Reddy, bacterial diseases of corn. Edith K. Seymour, transferred to oat smut problem with Mrs. Bartholomew. D. Atanasoff, charge of extension work in plant pathology at Sofia Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulgaria. M.T. Binney, with Albert Dickinson Seed Co., Chicago. End Page 4.