520 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of the year. The loss, however, is due 

 to animal products and not to crops, 

 the former having decreased over 

 $300,000,000 in value, and the latter 

 having gained nearly $50,000,000. The 

 total value of farm products reached 

 The great total of eight billion four 

 hundred and seventeen million dollars. 

 Corn is the leading crop of the 

 country, being double in value that of 

 cotton and being three quarters the 

 total production of the world. The | 

 amount produced last year was a little 

 under the average for the preceding 

 five years, but the value was greater 

 than ever before. The United States 

 produces about three fifths of the cot- 

 ton of the world and the exports, 

 amounted last year to $585,000,000, or 

 more than a quarter of all exports. 

 The crop of cotton last year was the 

 largest ever grown, but the price de- 

 clined. Hay, which stands next to 

 cotton and is close to it in value, gave 

 last year the smallest crop produced 

 since 1888. Wheat, worth about $600,- 

 000,000, was in quantity about five 

 per cent, below the five-year average. 

 Oats, fifth in order of value, decreased 

 in quantity, but rose in price. Potatoes 

 yielded about 90 per cent, of the av- 

 erage production, but the crop sold for 

 more than ever before. Next in order 

 of value were barley, tobacco, flaxseed, 

 rye, sugar beets, hops, rice and buck- 

 wheat. The refined beet sugar pro- 

 duced in the country greatly increased, 

 amounting to the value of $90,000,000, 

 while cane sugar is valued at $45,- 

 000,000. 



According to preliminary official re- 

 ports the crops in 1912 will surpass 

 all others in the history of this coun- 

 try. Eight billion dollars a year for 

 farm products is an enormous sum. 

 We should not, however, forget that at 

 least one fourth of this vast amount 

 represents the natural fertility of the 

 soil which we are consuming. So much 

 should surely be saved for permanent 

 improvements, buildings, tools, stock, 

 roads, etc., and the most profitable and 

 permanent of all investments, the 



education, health and welfare of the 

 people. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 

 We record with regret the deaths of 

 Dr. Lewis Boss, director of the Dudley 

 Observatory, Albany; of Professor 

 Morris Loeb, the distinguished chemist 

 of New York City; of Dr. Leonard 

 W. Williams, instructor in comparative 

 anatomy at the Harvard Medical 

 School, and of Professor Williston S. 

 Hough, dean of the Teachers College 

 and professor of philosophy at the 

 George Washington University. 



Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute for Medical Research, 

 has, according to cablegrams from 

 Stockholm, been awarded the Nobel 

 prize in medicine. Dr. Carrel, who was 

 born in France in 1873, has carried 

 forward important research work in 

 experimental pathology, physiology and 

 surgery. — Mr. A. Wendell Jackson, who 

 has arranged a loan of $50,000,000 to 

 China, in opposition to the offers of the 

 financiers of the six great powers, is a 

 mining engineer who was formerly pro- 

 fessor of mineralogy and economic 

 geology at the University of Cali- 

 fornia. He is a fellow of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of 

 Science and a fellow of the Geological 

 Society of America. 



Sir W. H. White has been elected 

 president of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science for the 

 meeting to be held next year in Bir- 

 I mingham. — At the eighty-fourth meet- 

 ing of the German Association of 

 Scientific Men and Physicians held 

 recently at Miinster, it was decided 

 ! that next year the meeting will be 

 held at Vienna, under the presidency 

 of Professor H. H. Meyer. — The four- 

 teenth meeting of the Australasian 

 Association for the Advancement of 

 j Science will be held in Melbourne in 

 January, 1913. — The International Con- 

 gress of Mathematicians recently meet- 

 ing at Cambridge adjourned to meet 

 in Stockholm in 1916. 



