1817] EDITOKIAL. 11 



making. Eecently the ecologists have embarked upon a large pro- 

 gram of cooperation on climatology in relation to plants and animals. 



This latter enterprise has been developed in the Ecological Society 

 of America, established a year ago, through a climatological com- 

 mittee. Cooperative studies in special lines are being participated 

 in by a considerable number of workers. One subcommittee has 

 to do with soil temperature as an environmental factor of special 

 interest to entomologists and pathologists, to foresters, to crop 

 specialists, and a wide range of workers. This subcommittee has 

 organized soil temperature studies, to be carried on cooperatively 

 in accordance with a relatively simple plan, and has met with ready 

 response from investigators, who have been willing to put funds 

 into the work and adhere to a plan which would make their results 

 comparable. The undertaking recognizes that there must be leader- 

 ship and plan, with provision for assembling the data, but it also 

 recognizes that the plan should be a simple one, should not attack 

 too large a question at any one time, and should allow the maximum 

 individual liberty consistent with comparative data. The effort is 

 especially interesting because of the faith it shows and the response 

 there has been to it. 



Cooperation or coordination can not be forced and it can not 

 thrive unless there is a spirit and attitude on the part of the indi- 

 viduals and the institutions, which recognizes the limitations of the 

 individual and the fact that in many things science and the common 

 good can best be promoted by a closer union of effort. 



At present there seems to be widespread interest in some means of 

 giving fairly prompt publicity to the lines of investigation in prog- 

 ress, in order that investigators may know what experiments and 

 researches are being conducted in the lines they are especially inter- 

 ested in, and where this work is going on. This is an encouraging 

 sign. It offers a means of approach. The provision of information 

 regarding lines of work and specific undertakings would furnish a 

 means by which investigators who desired could draw closer together, 

 and by which unnecessary duplication could be avoided and the 

 results of separate experiments made to supplement one another more 

 definitely. 



