CONVENTION OF AMERICAN AGRTCULTURAL COLLPXIES. 8'23 



iiistriu'tioii required. He thought it (lesiral)le to streno-then military 

 eourses somewhat, and emphasized the importanec^ of target practice 

 and camp life in a system of military instruction. He would liave 

 military instruction recpiired for 5 hours a week during 2 years of the 

 collegiate course. Speaking of the reccMit order from the War 

 Department, he pointed out that in his judgment it is utterly imprac- 

 tical)le to meet the requirements of that order, and in this position he 

 was supported by C. W. Dabney, G. W. Atherton. H. E. Alvord, and 

 others who discussed the question. Some means of bringing the matter 

 to the att(Mition of the War Department was sought and finally, by vote 

 of the section, it was dec^ided to refer it to the standing committee of 

 the association on military instruction in land-grant colleges, with the 

 request that the committee confer with the Secretary of War and 

 immediately thereafter report the results of the conference. 



SECTION ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



In this section three subjects of general interest were discussed. 

 The discussion on excellencies and defects of existing legislation for the 

 control of insects and fungus pests was opened by S. A. Forbes, who 

 reviewed and compared the requirements of inspection laws in differ- 

 ent States and gave special attention to the California law. In the 

 discussion which followed quite a number of th(> members of the 

 American Horticultural Inspectors' Association participated, explain- 

 ing the requirements under which they were operating in diti'erent 

 States. In this connection it is interesting to note that the horticul- 

 tural inspectors appointed a committee of three to attempt to har- 

 monize these laws — that is, to draw up a uniform law that could be 

 recommended for all the States. 



J. B. Smith discussed recent observations and experiments with 

 insecticides for the San Jose scale, reviewing in a general wa^y recent 

 experimcMits along that line. In this discussion and in that l)y other 

 members of the section the consensus of opinion seemed to be that 

 crude i)retroleum, kerosene, and lime, salt and sulphur constitute the 

 standard remedies for San Jose scale. The latter remedy has not been 

 tried with success in the East until quite recentl}'. 



Cooperation in making insecticide tests was the subject of a discus- 

 sion opened by H. T. Fernald, in which it was generally agreed that 

 cooperation is desirable and that cooperators should agree on certain 

 investigations along well-determined lines. 



SECTION ON HORTICCLTIRE AND BOTANY. 



Owing to the small attendance in this section onh* three of the 

 papers on the programme were read. A paper by A. D. Selby on The 

 Need of Better Courses of Preparation for Work in Applied Botany 

 was read by the secretary. The writer regretted the fact that there 



