TILE PBOGRESS OF SCIEM E. 



■93 



place of meeting this year. Philadel- 

 phia is centrally situated, at least for 

 the Atlantic seaboard. The city is 

 noted for its scientific societies and 

 institutions. The University of Penn- 

 sylvania is one of the great universi- 

 ties which can offer admirable accom- 

 modations to all the societies and at 

 the same time much to interest all 

 men of science. Houston Hall, the 

 beautiful club house of the students, 

 will be an admirable center for social 

 intercourse. The magnificent new 

 medical laboratories will not only give 

 excellent places of meeting for the so- 

 cieties devoted to the biological 

 sciences, but a visit to them would re- 

 pay a trip from Boston or even from 

 Chicago. Each group of scientific 

 men will find something to interest 

 them in the advances made by the uni- 

 versity during the ten years of Pro- 

 vost Harrison's administration. These 

 include the laboratories of physics and 

 of chemistry, the engineering hall, the 

 observatory, the botanical garden, the 

 vivarium and the museums, to men- 

 tion only certain of the developments 

 connected with the natural and exact 

 sciences. 



THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



Much has been written of late about 

 the work of the National Department 

 of Agriculture, and widespread public 

 interest aroused in its developments. 

 There have been occasional criticisms 

 of particular investigations, but there 

 has been much to commend, which has 

 appealed to people as having an im- 

 portant bearing in the development of 

 agriculture. Interest in its annual re- 

 port is by no means confined to the 

 farmers and horticulturists, and no 

 one can read it without being im- 

 pressed by the fact that under the di- 

 rection and stimulus of the present 

 secretary of agriculture it has become 

 an agency of great activity and ag- 

 gressiveness in all that pertains to 

 agricultural science and practise. 



Xo reasonable expense or effort is 

 evidently being spared to introduce or 

 originate plants of improved quality, 

 or better adapted to particular sec- 

 tions, to find remedies for diseases and 

 pests of plants and animals, to extend 

 the market for agricultural products, 

 and to bring about an improved and 

 more intelligent agriculture. In this 

 the department is ably seconded by 

 the agricultural experiment stations, 

 located in every state and territory of 

 the union, whose services the secre- 

 tary acknowledges in the opening 

 clause of his report and elsewhere. 

 Many of the investigations reported 

 from the department have originated 

 and been worked out at the experi- 

 ment stations, but they have been 

 fostered and exploited by the depart- 

 ment. Much of this work is a joint 

 undertaking. The relations between 

 these agencies are so close in object 

 and method that specific reference to 

 the stations is not made in each case, 

 although evidently implied in a sum- 

 mary of what has been accomplished. 

 The secretary endorses the movement 

 for increasing the federal appropria- 

 tion to the state stations, a bill for 

 which is now pending in congress, and 

 commends their work unsparingly. 



Among the exigencies of the year 

 which have called for special atten- 

 tion are the control of cattle scab and 

 mange in the west, of which the in- 

 dividual states were unable to prevent 

 the spread, and the serious and 

 threatening ravages of the cotton-boll 

 weevil in Texas and Louisiana. The 

 latter work has been widely described 

 in the press. The past season was a 

 favorable one in bringing out the value 

 of macaroni or durum wheats, intro- 

 duced by the department in the semi- 

 arid west a few years ago. It is esti- 

 mated that fourteen million bushels 

 were grown, and a great impetus was 

 given to their culture. The growing 

 of pedigreed sugar beet seed is show- 

 ing home-grown seed to be equal to the 

 imported seed, and often better. A 



