I 



1917] NOTES. 799 



American Society of Agronomy. — The tenth annual meeting of this society 

 was held in Washington, D. C, November 12 and 13. 



The presidential address was given by W. M. Jardine at a joint session held 

 with the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. Dean Jardine took 

 for his subject The Agronomist of the Future, outlining the opportunities for 

 service and the obligations imposed upon the trained agronomist with respect 

 to the present emergency. He especially emphasized the necessity of gaining 

 the confidence of the farmer by offering him ideas which are practical and 

 workable as well as theoretically correct, and likened the agronomist to the 

 " middleman " standing between the investigator in pure science and the farmer. 

 Me maintained further that the primary duty of an agricultural college in 

 granting the B. S. degree was to train agricultural teachers and farmers, not 

 to turn out fuU-fledged scientific investigators. In concluding he urged that 

 the agronomist be untiring in his study of the fundamentals and that the 

 society encourage its members to pursue research studies. 



Other papers presented before the society included the following: Mineral 

 Food Requirements of the Wheat Plant at Different Stages in Its Development, 

 by A. G. McCall ; Effect of Sodium Nitrate Applied at Different Stages on the 

 Yield, Composition, and Quality of Wheat, by J. Davidson and J. A. LeClerc; 

 Some Facts Regarding the Soft or Flour Corns, by H. H. Biggar; Drainage 

 Tanks for Soil Investigations — Some Preliminary Studies, by C. A. Mooers; 

 Organizing Crop Production on the Basis of the Distribution of the Natural 

 Vegetation, by A. B. Waller; Realtion of Weed Growth to Nitric Nitrogen Ac- 

 cumulation in the Soil, by L. E. Call and M. G. Sewell ; Wheat Breeding Ideals, 

 by H. Snyder; Red Rock Wheat and Rosen Rye, by F. A. Spragg; Calcium in 

 Its Relation to Plant Nutrition, by R. H. True; The Triangle System for Fer- 

 tilizer Experiments (with some remarks on the potash hunger of potatoes), by 

 O. Schreiner and J. J. Skinner ; Some Tests of an " All-Crops " Soil Inoculum, 

 by P. Emerson ; Corn and Wheat Soils in the United States, by C. F. Marbut ; 

 Methods Used in Cereal Investigations at the Cornell Station, by H. H. Love 

 and W. T. Craig; The Significance of the Sulphur in Sulphate of Ammonia 

 Applied to Certain Soils, by C. B. Lipman ; and Aluminum as a Factor Influenc- 

 ing the Effect of Acid Soils on Different Crops, by B. L. Hartwell and F. R. 

 Pember. 



One entire session was devoted to varietal classification and nomenclature. 

 A report of the committee upon varietal nomenclature embracing six years' 

 work was read and discussed. This report is to be published in full in the 

 Journal of the American Society of Agronomy. It included a " Code of Nomen- 

 clature," and a motion was adopted that the society appoint a committee to 

 " act in cooperation with the American seed trade and any other agencies to 

 secure uniformity in rules and practices of varietal nomenclature and registra- 

 tion." In connection with the presentation of the report, C. R. Ball discussed 

 The Classification of Western Wheat Varieties, exhibiting mounted specimens 

 to illustrate the scheme of clas.sification employed, and gave a paper on Naming 

 American Wheat Varieties, which outlined the use of the proposed Code of 

 Nomenclature as applied to wheat. Mr. Ball emphasized the immediate neces- 

 sity for a systematic naming of varieties, to be followed later by a scheme of 

 classification. 



Summarized reports were submitted by the committees on the standardization 

 of field experiments and agronomic terminology. Brief reports were also sub- 

 mitted from local sections in Iowa, Kansas, Cornell, Ohio, South Dakota, New 

 England, and Washington, D. G. 



