284 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the recognition of correct principles by 

 the people, it is primarily necessary that 

 correct principles should be constantly 

 impressed upon the attention of the peo- 

 ple. The great need of the nation to- 

 day is wise leadership — unselfish men, 

 who appreciate the necessity of being 

 governed by immutable divinely ap- 

 pointed principles, to act as leaders, to 

 keep the minds of the people centered 

 in the right direction." Coming to the 

 main subject of the essay, we have, as 

 to the expediency of taxing ourselves 

 to have sugar made here : " If the farm- 

 er's profits must come from the consum- 

 ers of sugar as a bounty or tax, and not 

 from the inherent profitableness of the 

 business, then the farmer's profits are 

 the consumer's loss. The business is in- 

 herently unprofitable, and no farmer, or 

 any one else, has a right, ' inherent ' or 

 otherwise, to carry on an unprofitable 

 business, except at his own expense. . . . 

 It may be assumed that the farmers 

 who are gi'owing the sugar are now 

 growing crops Avhich, if not as profitable 

 as they desire, are at least sufficiently 

 so to keep them from being burdensome 

 to the rest of the nation. And how can 

 the prosperity of the nation be increased 

 by having these same farmers engage in 

 a new business which will require them 

 to draw on the productive capacity of 

 the rest of the people to the extent of 

 many millions of dollars annually, in 

 order to keep their heads above water ? " 



Bacteria of the Dairy. — An inves- 

 tigation of the relation of acid fermenta- 

 tion to the flavor and aroma of butter, 

 made by C. H. Eckles at the Iowa Col- 

 lege Experiment Station, has given the 

 results that the flavor is produced by 

 the bacterial fermentations which have 

 taken place in the milk and cream. 

 The kind of flavor depends upon the 

 class of bacteria causing the fermenta- 

 tion. The ripening of a good quality of 

 acid cream is mostly a development of 

 acid bacteria. Four species of acid-pro- 

 ducing bacteria, tested in ripening pas- 

 teurized cream, were found to give the 

 butter the tjpical flavor and aroma. Of 

 the species tried, the most common 

 milk-souring organism (Bacterium lac- 

 tarii) was found to give the most satis- 

 factory results in ripening cream. Cream 

 ripened with common bacteria found in 

 hay dust {Bacillus suhtilis) gives a 



very undesirable flavor to butter. The 

 superior flavor of summer butter is due 

 to the greater number of bacteria of the 

 acid class found in milk during that 

 season. 



For Outdoor Improvement. — The 

 American Park and Outdoor Associa- 

 tion has taken up and aims to nation- 

 alize the important work of the im- 

 provement of outdoors. Not that it ex- 

 pects to improve upon Nature, but it 

 hopes to be able to neutralize or rem- 

 edy the devastation and disfigurement 

 which man has wrought upon her face. 

 At the third annual meeting of the 

 association, held in Detroit in July, 

 1899, preliminary steps were taken to- 

 ward off'ering prizes for the improve- 

 ment of grounds about manttfactories 

 and homes — both front and back lots — - 

 and especially about the homes of arti- 

 sans. A standing committee was insti- 

 tuted to consider the best way of check- 

 ing abuses of public advertising. A 

 paper read by Mr. F. Law Olmstead, on 

 the Relation of Reservoirs to Public 

 Parks, concerned such construction of 

 reservoirs and the surrounding them 

 with suitable settings as would bring 

 them into closer harmony with the park 

 landscape and make them more a part 

 of it. Another paper, by Mr. R. J. 

 Coryell, of the Detroit parks, might be 

 described as an efl"ort to show how a 

 similar service may be performed for 

 the parks and the people — in other 

 words, how to make the people at home 

 in the parks. Its points Avere illus- 

 trated by citing what had been done in 

 Detroit. Respecting means of prevent- 

 ing depredations, Mr. C. C. Lancey told 

 of good results accomplished in Roches- 

 ter, N. Y., by the distribution of circu- 

 lars of information on the subject; and 

 Mr. F. L. Olmstead, Jr., of the interest 

 taken by the children in the school gar- 

 dens in Cambridge, Mass. 



Where Physical Investigation 

 Fails. — From the discussion of the 

 phj^sical method, with its descriptive 

 laws and applications and hypotheses. 

 Prof. J. 11. Poynting was led, in his 

 address at the British Association, to 

 the consideration of the limitation of 

 its range. It was developed in the 

 study of matter which we describe as 

 non-living, and with non-living matter it 



