512 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Rhode Islaxd College and Station. — Kenyon L. Butterfield has been elected 

 president of the college and will enter upon his duties about April first. Mr. Butter- 

 field was for several years superintendent of farmers' institutes in Michigan and is 

 at present instructor in rural sociology in the University of Michigan, where he has 

 been taking post-graduate work. T. G. Mathewson, of East Greenwich, has been 

 appointed president of the board of managers to succeed H. L. Greene, resigned.- 

 L. P. Sprague, assistant horticulturif^t of the station, has resigned, and A. E. Stene, 

 of Cornell University, has been appointed to succeed him. 



South Carolina Station.^ — A new barn for the station has recently been com- 

 pleted, and registered representatives of the beef and milk strains or breeds are 

 being placed in it. 



Vermont Station.— The general assembly, recently adjourned, has replaced the 

 fertilizer and feeding stuffs inspection laws, passed respectively in 1888 and 1898, 

 with new enactments. A brand tax has been substituted for a blanket license as a 

 means of raising revenue for the enforcement of the fertilizer law, and a small appro- 

 priation has been voted the station for use in feeding stuffs inspection, thus doing 

 away with the cumbersome and unsatisfactory tag tax system hitherto in vogue. 

 The fertilizer law has been drawn in substantial conformity with the recommenda- 

 tions contained in the report of the committees on fertilizer legislation of the Associa- 

 tion of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations and of the Association 

 of Official Agricultural Chemists. A joint resolution was passed requesting the sta- 

 tion to investigate the seed trade of the State, and to report to the next general 

 assembly such findings and recommendations as are deemed wise and will con- 

 tribute to the enhanced purity of grass and similar seeds. 



WiscoNsrv University and Station. — T. F. McConnell, instructor in animal hus- 

 bandry in the college of agriculture and assistant in the station, has been elected to 

 the chair of animal husbandry in the Arizona University and Station. 



U. S. Department op Agriculture. — Another building for the use of the Depart- 

 ment has been erected by private enterprise. The new building is to accommodate 

 the botanical work of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and is located on Twelfth street 

 near the Department grounds. It is 85 by 40 ft. and 3 stories in height, with a large 

 basement. The Vjuilding has about 35 rooms above the basement, most of them 

 of good size and well lighted. The basement will contain 4 large workrooms, 2 of 

 these to be used for seed germination, and 2 as laboratories for investigations of drugs 

 and medicinal plants and of poisonous plants, respectively. The first two floors will 

 be given up to office and laboratory rooms for the pure seed investigations, drugs 

 and medicinal plants, and poisonous plants; and the third floor will accommodate the 

 cereal investigations, the tropical agricultural work, and the fiber plant investiga- 

 tions, and will contain a general photographic room and 2 dark rooms. The build- 

 ing was ready for occupation January 1. It serves to bring together the work in 

 botanical lines which heretofore has been quite widely scattered. 



Society of Official Horticultural Inspectors. — The second annual meeting of 

 this society was held at Atlanta, Ga., October 6, 7, and 8, on the occasion of the con- 

 vention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Sta- 

 tions. ■ Representatives were present from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, 

 New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. The sessions 

 were presided over by S. A. Forbes, of Illinois, and W. M. Scott, of Georgia, acted 

 as secretary. We are indebted to the courtesy of the latter for this account of the 

 meeting. The proceedings took the form of discussions of topics suggested in a pre- 

 liminary programme, rather than the presentation of set papers. At the conclusion 

 of the discussion of each topic the views of the delegates on that point were recorded 

 in a resolution offered by some member. 



Upon the first topic, Interstate Comity Avith Respect to the Certification of Nurs- 

 eries, the unanimous opinion of the delegates was to the effect that the examining 



