REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 29 



The following have entered into this relation up to October i , 1904 : 



Mr. William Bateson, University of Cambridge, England. 



Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Washington, D. C. 



Dr. C. E. Correns, professor of botany. University, Leipzig. 



Dr. lyucien Cuenot, professor of zoology. University, Nancy, France. 



Dr. E. Fischer, Zurich, Switzerland. 



Mr. C. C. Hurst, Leicester, England. 



Dr. Arnold Lang, professor of zoology. University, Zurich, Switzerland. 



Dr. M. Standfuss, professor of entomology, Zurich, Switzerland. 



Dr. Erich Tschermak, Hochschule fiir Bodenkultur, Vienna. 



Dr. Charles Otis Whitman, professor of zoology. University of Chicago. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK. 



From the very nature of the investigations undertaken and the slow- 

 ness with which most animals and plants breed, few scientific results 

 can be expected from three or four months of work. Results are 

 just beginning to come in, and will be published in the scientific series 

 recording the work of the station. 



It is the policy of the station not to undertake particular lines of 

 experimental work that are being done well elsewhere, and conse- 

 quently certain fields cultivated at universities are not undertaken, 

 although the material might be especially favorable for results. 



Dr. Davenport, in addition to a heavy burden of administration and 

 his duties as director of the Biological L,aboratory of the Brooklyn 

 Institute, has devoted himself largely to breeding domesticated 

 animals to test the range of validity of the theory of unit character- 

 istics. In these experiments the station is receiving the cooperation 

 of neighbors. Cows, sheep, goats, cats^ poultry, and canary-birds 

 are being bred and especially cross-bred. Experiments are also being 

 made upon wild species of Crustacea and mollusca. Records are 

 kept of the breeding periods of representatives of these groups. 

 Particular attention is being paid to Japanese long-tailed fowl to test 

 the cause for their peculiarity. Already certain results of hybridiza- 

 tion have been obtained, of which a report will be made later. 



Dr. Shull reports as follows : 



The ground to be devoted to garden experiments had not been tilled for about 

 15 years, and the first problem which presented itself in preparation for botanical 

 investigations was the conversion of this heavily sodded meadow-land into a 

 successful garden plot. About three acres of ground were broken, and con- 

 tinuous cultivation has reduced the soil to a very satisfactory physical condition. 

 With the exception of a few small areas, the soil, a light, sandy loam, has 

 proved fairly fertile ; thorough manuring will be needed, however, to bring it 

 to the high degree of fertility desirable in a garden. 



Owing to the uncertainty of results to be obtained under the conditions pre- 

 sented this year, none of the special cultures to which the garden is to be largely 



