NOTES. 397 



Dr. Bailey's address was in a sense a continuation of his vice-presidential 

 address of last year (PI S. R., 32, p. 102), the subject being The Forthcoming 

 Situation in Agricultural Work, II. In this he dealt first with questions of 

 organization, administration, and relationships of agricultural work — the 

 tendency, as he saw it, to overorganize and the danger of centralized adminis- 

 trative control. He expressed the feeling that " we are in immediate danger 

 of developing in our institutions a set of administrative officers controlling 

 affairs, who are separate in spirit from the real work of research and 

 e<lucation." 



To maintain the proper external influences and to carry forward the work 

 through other agencies than the state agricultural colleges, the speaker advised 

 the extension of rural teaching founded on agriculture into general and liberal 

 arts institutions " to the end that they may be made a means of culture, a 

 force for training in citizenship, and a broadening influence in the institu- 

 tions; " and he pointed to the opportunity for a new kind of agricultural insti- 

 tution of very high grade, founded on private endowment. Of the lattor he 

 said : " This will be a coordinating and leadership institution, teaching advanced 

 and special students in some subjects, engaging in research, but in the main 

 making its contribution as a place for conference, for consideration of the 

 large civic and social relations of rural life, and as a voluntai'y meeting place 

 on common and neutral ground for all the forces that lie in the situation."' 

 Such an institution would afford " better opportunities than the land-grant or 

 other state-named institutions are likely to give the freest men." It would 

 " conserve the independence and the opportunities of the boldest prophets." 



The symposium on The Relation of Science to Meat Production comprised an 

 introduction by President W. O. Tliompson, of Ohio State University, and four 

 papers setting forth different aspects of the question. 



Dr. Thompson defined the Nature of the Problem, the background of which 

 lies in the fact that the people of this country have been a meat eating people 

 for many generations, and any limit to the supply or any execessive cost will 

 meet with serious objection. The problem of meat production is largely an 

 economic one in farm management. It has been affected by the change which 

 the whole country has been undergoing — the change in farming conditions, the 

 extension of agriculture to new regions, the breaking up of the public domain, 

 and the restriction by barbed wire. The rapid development of cities in the 

 East and Central West has made a demand for dairy products which has tended 

 to increase the dairy industry, even in the vicinity of small towns, and this in 

 turn has affected the keeping of beef cattle. The large risk sustained in live 

 stock keeping has contributed another angle, as has also the problem of advan- 

 tageous marketing. The size of farms has been reduced, with less land given 

 up to pasturage in the Central West, and the tenant system has increased. This 

 system does not favor beef production. 



Dr. Thompson maintained that the problem is not a haphazard one, but in- 

 volves definite factors and must be studied from a broad .standpoint, including 

 the relations to systems of farming and the maintenance of fertility, the mainte- 

 nance of the health of live stock to reduce the risk, and advantageous marketing 

 conditions, in the firm belief that the laborer shall receive his reward. 



President H. J. Waters, of the Kansas Agricultural College, outlined the 

 following points to be borne in mind in considering the question of meat supply : 

 (1) There is a constant reduction in the per capita consumption of meat as the 

 re.sult of a widespread cam^ aign against meat eating. If the consumption should 

 be reduced in the next half century to the average for the world we could 

 provide for twice the present population. (2) Meat production must yield a 



