98 EXPEKIMENT STATION EECOKD. 



exhaust tbe accuninlated fund. From that time the service must depend on 

 its current income. Few of the larger projects ai*e completed, and the phin is 

 to get a portion of the land under each reclaimed as soon as possible, and then, 

 with the revenue derived from this part, to build the remainder of the works 

 and finish the reclamation of the entire area. 



The work of this Office in irrigation and drainage was outlined in a paper by 

 A. C. True, who was unable to be present. The irrigation work was explained as 

 dealing with the use of water, rather than the construction of works to supply 

 water, and as including the study of the best methods of irrigation throughout 

 the arid region, the feasibility of irrigation in connection with the farming of 

 the seuiiarid plains, and the profitableness of irrigation in the humid East, where 

 truck and fruit crops of high value are often injured by droughts of short 

 duration. The drainage work consists in formulating and demonstrating the 

 best methods of removing surplus water and protecting land frou) overflow. 

 Plans for the improvement of more than 2,000,000 acres were made during the 

 past year. 



Elwood Mead discussed the necessity for laws providing for definite titles 

 to water rights, in order that the canal owner may have the same security as 

 the landowner ; and F. W. Roeding gave an account of the irrigation extension 

 work on the semiarid plains in connection with the three demonstration farms 

 established by the Office. 



S. Fortier declared the greatest need of the arid region to be industrious white 

 settlers. He showed that during the year 1908 5.000,000 acres of unimproved 

 lands provided with water rights will be opened for settlement, besides those in 

 Colorado, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Before any 

 harvest can be obtained on this new land an average of $20 per acre, or 

 ^100,000,000, must be expended. Most of the settlers for this land must come 

 from regions where irrigation is not practiced, and this lai'ge expenditure is 

 likely to be lost unless it can be wisely directed. To meet this demand. Profes- 

 sor Fortier recommended the employment by the Government of sufficient skilled 

 irrigation farmers to direct the work of the new settlers. 



Among the resolutions adopted by the congress were a recommendation for 

 the reorganization of the irrigation and drainage investigations of this Office 

 as a separate bureau, in recognition of its importance, and an indorsement of 

 the work of the Bureau of Soils, the Forest Service, and the Reclamation 

 Service. 



American Chemical Society. — The thirty-sixth general meeting of this organi- 

 zation was held at Toronto June 27-29, with about 150 delegates and visitors 

 in attendance. During the session an excursion was made to the Ontario Agri- 

 cultural College and Experimental Farm at Guelph. Among the addresses 

 •delivered before the general assembl3' was one on Chemistry and Canadian 

 Agriculture, bj^ F. T. Shutt, chairman of the section on agricultural, sanitary, 

 and biological chemistry. Papers were presented to this section on Unification 

 of Terms Used in Reporting Analytical Results, by C. G. Hopkins ; The Determi- 

 nation of Boric Acid in Common Salt, by W. D. Bigelow and C. S. Brinton ; 

 and Solubilities of Food Colors, by E. Gudeman, together with several reported 

 by title only. It was decided to separate the offices of editor and secretary, 

 Prof. W. A. Noyes, now of the University of Illinois, retaining the editorship 

 of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and of Chemical Abstracts, 

 and Dr. C. L. Parsons, head of the chemical department of the New Hampshire 

 ■College, becoming secretary. 



International Zoological Congress. — The Seventh International Zoological 

 Congress was held in Boston August 19-25, in the new buildings of the Harvard 

 Medical School. Alexander Agassiz presided, and general addresses were deliv- 



