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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



raised this year. The propaganda for 

 sugar-beet culture was inaugurated 

 soon after the present secretary came 

 to the department, and the widespread 

 tests of its adaptation to different parts 

 of the country have shown the regions 

 especially adapted to the crop and been 

 followed by a nearly tenfold increase 

 in beet-sugar production. 



The Weather Bureau has greatly ex- 

 tended the range of its observations 

 and its investigation in the domain of 

 meteorological science, with the result 

 of increasing efficiency and a wider ap- 

 plication of its work. It is now said 

 to be the most highly developed weather 

 service in the world. The soil survey 

 has been entirely developed under the 

 present administration, and constitutes 

 the first systematic attempt to make a 

 comprehensive soil survey of the United 

 States. In economic entomology there 

 have been very important developments, 

 and the scope of the work has been 

 more than doubled, not to mention the 

 extensive scale on which the Bureau of 

 Entomology has worked in the cam- 

 paign against the cotton boll weevil. 



The Bureau of Animal Industry, in 

 addition to stamping out an outbreak 

 of the foot-and-mouth disease in New 

 England, has attained very important 

 results in the study of animal diseases 

 and their control, and the meat inspec- 

 tion in its charge has very materially 

 increased. The inspection work has 

 also been extended under the Bureau of 

 Chemistry to other food products in- 

 tended for export and import, and a 

 system of food standards has been 

 worked out as a basis for guidance in 

 federal, state and municipal food in- 

 spection. 



These are only a few of the many 

 lines enumerated in which investiga- 

 tion has been inaugurated or impor- 

 tant progress made. The showing is 

 a gratifying one, and affirms how 

 definite has been the aim in expanding 

 and developing the department to meet 

 the manifold needs of our unusually 

 diverse agriculture. In a word, its 



twofold object has been ' to add to the 

 sum of intelligence of the man, and 

 to increase the productive capacity of 

 the acre.' In this it has been strongly 

 supported by the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations of the country, to which 

 the secretary makes appreciative ac- 

 knowledgment. " Not only have the 

 stations been a vital factor in making 

 the department's work more effective," 

 he says, " but they have by their own 

 investigations lifted American agricul- 

 ture to a higher plane." These two 

 great agencies working together have 

 laid the foundation of a science of 

 agriculture as a basis for teaching and 

 practise, and have won the confidence 

 and appreciation not only of the farm- 

 ers but of the general public. 



TEE NEW ORLEANS MEETING OF 

 THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 

 The meeting of the association at 

 New Orleans during the Christmas 

 holidays was thoroughly enjoyed by 

 those members who were able to be 

 present, and was of service in increas- 

 ing in the south the influence of the 

 association and interest in scientific 

 work. The attendance was small, only 

 233 members being registered, but this 

 was foreseen. The trip from the main 

 centers of scientific activity was long 

 for the Christmas holidays, and in 

 most of the sciences meetings were being 

 held simultaneously in more accessible 

 places. The total number of scientific 

 workers in the south is lamentably 

 small. It appears from a computation 

 recently made of the residence of the 

 thousand leading men of science of the 

 United States that only four of them 

 live in the states of Georgia, Alabama, 

 Louisiana and Mississippi; whereas 

 there are 144 in Massachusetts, 43 in 

 Connecticut, 35 in New Jersey and 47 

 in Maryland. The south has enjoyed 

 a noteworthy development in its ma- 

 terial resources in the past decade, and 

 there is every reason to assume that 

 its universities and other institutions 

 concerned with the advancement of sci- 



