EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XVI. January, 1905. No. 5 



The winter meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science has become one of the leading- scientific events of the 

 year. The association is so broad in its scope and its affiliations that 

 it furnishes a common meeting - ground for the representatives of 

 almost every branch of pure and applied science. It brings together 

 an enthusiastic and earnest body of men of science, who take advantage 

 of this opportunity for meeting their colleagues and those engaged in 

 related branches of science, of listening to papers and discussions on 

 subjects of broad interest, and of enjoying the social features which 

 are always in evidence at these meetings. 



The meeting at Philadelphia last month was a representative one in 

 all respects. It was attended by nearly a thousand persons, who were 

 members either of the American Association itself or some of its 

 affiliated societies. Both from a scientific and a social standpoint it 

 was an eminently successful and satisfactory meeting. 



Agricultural science was well represented at the various meetings 

 of the botanists, the chemists, the economic entomologists, the Society 

 for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, and the Society for Horti- 

 cultural Science. The programs of several other sections and societies 

 also contained a considerable number of papers relating to various 

 branches of agricultural science, and even the address of the retiring 

 president dealt in part with agricultural development in its relation 

 to economic problems. The theme of President Wright's address was 

 Science and Economics, and it concerned itself with the influence of 

 science in modifying and extending the theories of economists, and 

 what science might do in working out the great laws of the business 

 world. 



Concerning the Malthusian doctrine, it was pointed out that the 

 author of the theoiy ""did not anticipate and could not foresee the great 

 changes which would come in the wa}' of the cultivation of the land and 

 in other ways to increase the food supply relative to the increase of 

 population. . . . The broadening of the area of supply through dis- 

 covery, and the taking up of vast tracts of land, were the immediate 

 means of depriving the doctrine of its force, but later on intensive 

 agriculture and the discoveries of science succeeded in relegating the 



theorv to the past." 



421 



