NOTES. 297 



other fruit pests. It replaces a former temporary laboratory at Bridgetown, 

 which is to be used as a substation wherever most needed. 



The laboratories at Treesbank and Lethbridge are of the bungalow type, the 

 former being 12 by 16, and the latter, located on the Dominion substation farm, 

 23 by 20 feet. 



Short Courses in the Agricultural Colleges. — The following is quoted from the 

 editorial columns of The Breeder's Gazette: 



" This is an open season for short courses. Some years ago neither short 

 courses nor long courses interested many farmers. They knew what they knew, 

 and college learning was not attractive to them. A lot of changes follow along 

 with time, and one of the deepest significance is the altered attitude of farmers 

 toward educational institutions. When short courses for a few weeks of the 

 winter were first offered they were tested and found good, and facilities have 

 been taxed as the years rolled on to give the necessary attention to the crowds 

 of farmers who assemble. They are not young men. Indeed, some courses 

 specifically bar men under 25 years of age. They are graybeards who want to 

 lengthen their years of usefulness and increase their production by taking 

 advantage of all the facts dug up by investigators and students whose work is to 

 uncover truth. Some agricultural colleges this winter will fairly resemble army 

 posts in dormitory equipment. An attempt will be made to give accommoda- 

 tions on the grounds to all who attend, and in one case we understand a draft 

 has been made on the cots used by the state militia in order to provide enough 

 beds for farmers attending the short courses. We are never too old to learn." 



First National Conference on Church and Country life. — ^This conference was 

 held at Columbus, Ohio, December 8-10, 191.5, under the auspices of the 

 commission on the church and country life appointed in 1913 by the Federal 

 Council of Churches of Christ in America. About 40 States and 30 religious 

 denominations were represented and the attendance aggregated about 700. The 

 agricultural colleges were strongly represented, as well as ministers in active 

 service and leaders in the various denominations. 



The meetings were opened by Rev. Washington Gladden, and with an address 

 of welcome by Governor F. B. Willis of Ohio. The presiding oflice2 was GifCord 

 Pinchot, who declared that " we in America may be certain that the life in the 

 country can not be fine and strong unless it is strengthened by an active and 

 efficient church." 



The primary object of the conference was declared to be to bring to the 

 attention of the people in general the present condition of the country church 

 rather than to offer a specific plan for action. As an index to conditions, an 

 incomplete rural church survey in Ohio was presented showing that 83 per 

 cent of these churches had less than 100 members and 21 per cent less than 

 25 members, while less than 40 per cent of the rural population were members 

 of any church. Only one church in 16 had its individual minister, and one 

 church in 9 had been abandoned entirely within the last few years. 



Committee reports were presented dealing with various aspects of the 

 problem. That on the country church, its function, policy, and program was 

 given by President Kenyon L. Butterfield, of Massachusetts, who defined the 

 function of the country church as " to create, to maintain, and to enlarge both 

 individual and community ideals under the inspiration of the Christian motive 

 and teaching, and to help people to incarnate these ideals in personal and 

 family life, in industrial effort, in political development, and in all social 

 relationships." 



The committee report on the church as a community center by Dr. Earp, of 

 Drew Theological Seminary, pointed out that a " community center means, not 

 as many have thought the bringing of everything into the church, but rather 



