EDITORIAL 



Whenever a new man succeeds to an important job he 

 usually has an irresistible impulse to make a few changes ; 

 otherwise the smooth running- of the machinery would fail to 

 show that the business was in different hands. Some such idea 

 as this circulates through our mental works every time we con- 

 template the recent decisions of the post office department. 

 This time it is the hitherto unheard of scheme of sending maga- 

 zines by freight. The service is called fast freight but this is 

 an euphuism that is probably injected into the title in order to 

 let us down easy. A government that voluntarily abandons 

 the most rapid method of distributing its publications in order 

 to send them by freight, should have a crab — or perhaps a lob- 

 ster — in place of the eagle in its coat of arms. Many readers 

 do not know tliat the delay in receiving their magazines is due 

 to this cause, but the secret is rapidly coming out. If their 

 magazines do not appear on time they should take the matter 

 up with their postmaster. After all perhaps one ought not be 

 too hard on the postal authorities. They may have formed 

 their opinion of the value of printed matter from the stuff sent 

 out from the government printing office. 



* * * 



In one of our leading scientific publications, a controversy 

 has recently been raging rgarding the discovery of a new prin- 

 ciple in agriculture. The parties to the argument are scientists 

 of some repute and one would naturally suppose they might be 

 differing regarding the merits of the discovery or regarding its 

 application in producing more or better crops, but this is far 

 from being the case — they are simply quarreling over which 

 one discovered it first. This shows up one of the greatest 

 weaknesses of botanists in a peculiarly bad light. We have so 

 long looked with favor upon the first man to do a thing, even 



26 



