I. IMPORTANT NOTICE

The Maize Genetic Coöperation News Letters carry a statement to the effect that the presentation of data in them is not regarded as constituting publication and that no such data are to be used in publications without the consent of the authors. A foreign geneticist and plant breeder, not working with maize, has published a review of News Letter 16, 1942. He was aware of the injunction and quoted it in the review. He included none of the data but did include the perhaps tentative conclusions drawn from the data by the authors. While he obeyed the letter of the injunction, it can hardly be maintained that he accepted the spirit of the rule.

I conferred by letter with a number of the more active coöperators in this country. Replies ranged from one extreme to the other. Some thought that even such publication as had occurred might be disastrous or that, in the future, the News Letter should be sent only to those Coöperators who contributed material. Others saw little danger, at this stage of our work, from such a review as had been published and suggested no change other than a rewording of the injunction. Most replies suggested a middle course between these extremes. I am, therefore, adopting the following procedure. This News Letter is being sent to those who are now coöperating or who have furnished material in the not too distant past. Further copies will be held here to be sent on request to other geneticists or breeders. I shall have to depend on my own judgment (good or bad) in determining whether particular requests shall be honored.

R. A. Emerson