1917] NOTES. 699 



Agricultural Progress In Latin America. — A law recently enacted in Colombia 

 provides for the establishment of a series of stations in which agricultural 

 investigations, such as experiments and demonstrations, application of chemical 

 fertilizers, and the cultivation and acclimatization of plants, will be carried ou 

 and exhibits will be made of modern agricultural machinery and tools. Each 

 station will maintain a special agricultural meteorological bureau and be 

 equipped for the study of insects injurious to plants, for analyses of soils and 

 waters, and for the importation and distribution of seeds, plants, fertilizers, and 

 animals for breeding purposes. It is also expected to issue a monthly bulletin 

 as the official organ of these stations. 



A proposition is under consideration in Argentina for the establishment of a 

 central institution for experimental work in agriculture under the immediate 

 direction of the minister of agriculture. This institution would be located in 

 the capital and would contain at the start an agricultural chemical laboratory, 

 an office for seed control, an office for the study and inspection of agricultural 

 machinery, an office of agricultural botany, an office of vegetable pathology and 

 agricultural entomology, and a meteorological observatory. 



According to the Bulletin of the Pan American Union a practical school of 

 agriculture has been opened at Aconcagua, in Chile, and steps have been taken 

 to found an agricultural school for women in the Province of Aconcagua. 



In Costa Rica a professional school fr girds was inaugurated on June 1, 1916, 

 in San Jos§, equipped for giving practical instruction in domestic arts and 

 science and such other subjects as may be deemed desirable. 



The agricultural school at Challapata, Bolivia, for the instruction of the 

 natives has been moved to Rosario Plantation, near the town of Challapata, 

 and enlarged. 



It is announced that the Department of Fomento, in Mexico, has decided to 

 establish a nursery for tropical plants in one of the States of the Republic 

 bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. The principal feature of this nursery will be 

 to furnish to small farmers the most desirable varieties of tropical food plants 

 suitable for cultivation on the east coast of Mexico, such as bananas, mangos, 

 pineapples, alligator pears, lemons, oranges, etc. 



A national school of domestic arts for women, patterned after the Swiss 

 schools of domestic science, has been founded in the City of Mexico by the 

 department of public instruction. 



Cambridge University. — A proposal to establish an institute of agricultural 

 mechanics has been formally approved by the university senate. It is proposed 

 to establish this institute in connection with the schools of engineering and 

 agriculture with financial support from the Development Fund. The employ- 

 ment of an engineer as director and an agriculturist as an assistant director 

 has been authorized. 



Amsterdam Colonial Institute. — According" to a note in Nature, there has been 

 a movement in progress in Holland for the establishment of a colonial institute 

 in Amsterdam commensurate with Dutch colonial interests, and adequately 

 representative of the important part which Holland has taken in the prosecu- 

 tion of research in tropical agriculture and forestry. The promoters of the 

 new institute have been able to secure the transfer of the economic collections, 

 publications, and staff of a small but important colonial museum at Haarlem 

 to the Amsterdam institute. The latter is at present housed in temporary quar- 

 ters, but about $643,200 is available for the construction of buildings and the 

 installation of the new institute. It will apparently be supported mainly by 

 subsidies from the government, the province of North Holland, and the city of 

 Amsterdam, and by subscriptions from private individuals and firms. In 1914 



