NOTES. 195 



address of the president, Prof. S. M. Tracy, dealt with The Relation of Color 

 to Yield in Corn, summarizing the results with reference to this point of more 

 than 13,000 records of experiments in 16 different States. These showed an 

 average yield for the white varieties of 47.1 bushels per acre, and for the colored 

 varieties of 45.6 bushels, a difference of 1.5 bushels per acre. A possible 

 explanation of this was suggested. 



Papers on The Influence of Type and of Age upon the Utilization of Feed by 

 Cattle, and Results of Check Tests with the Respiration Calorimeter, were 

 presented by Dr. H. P. Armsby ; and The Influence of Maturity upon Yield and 

 Digestibility of Timothy Hay was reported upon by President H. J. Waters. 

 Dr. W. J. Real described The Vitality of Seed Ruried in Soil for Thirty Years, 

 Dr. L. H. Pammel gave notes on New Fungus Diseases for Iowa, Prof. F. W. 

 Rane presented a review of the work on The Gipsy and Rrown-tail Moth 

 Suppression in New England, and Prof. P. H. Rolfs discussed the Valuation of 

 Carbohydrates in Commercial Feeding Stuffs. An interesting feature of the 

 meeting was a symposium on The Essentials in the Training of the Investi- 

 gator. This was participated in by Dr. A. C. Ti'ue, Dr. H. P. Armsby, Dr. 

 W. H. Jordan, Director C. E. Thorne, and Prof. W. J. Spillman. 



The following officers were elected for the year : S. M. Tracy, president ; 

 E. W. Allen, secretary-treasurer ; W. J. Real, custodian ; and W. D. Hurd, 

 assistant custodian. 



American Society of Agronomy. — This society met November 14 and 15, 1910, 

 in Washington, D. C. In the absence of the president of the society, A. M. 

 Ten Eyck. the first vice president, A. R. Whitson, acted as chairman. The 

 program included the address of the retiring president and 20 papers, four of 

 which were read by title. 



Many of the papers described and discussed experimental methods and sought 

 to lay as much stress upon the methods employed as upon the results secured. 

 While some of them did not bear upon this question so directly, others went into 

 the matter of reliable and trustworthy means of experimentation quite thor- 

 oughly, pointing out why certain methods do not furnish data for definite 

 results and suggesting means for avoiding errors in drawing conclusions or in 

 the determination of the final figures. Much attention was given to the stand- 

 ardization of experiments and two papers treating of this topic in particular 

 were included in the program. This question was regarded as very important 

 and a committee with C. Y. Piper as chairman was appointed to consider the 

 standardization of both soil and crop experiments and to report at the next 

 meeting of the society. 



Ry invitation, Rert Rail, secretary of the committee on seed improvement of 

 the council of North American grain exchanges, laid before the society a plan 

 to inaugurate a national movement to obtain a larger yield of better grain and 

 requested the society to give its aid to the project. The essential feature of 

 the plan is the perfection of an organization with the object of locating the 

 supplies of grain suitable for seed on the one hand and for determining the 

 local need of seed and the demand for it on the other. The discussion of this 

 plan pointed out the difiiculties iu the way of the experiment station agrono- 

 mists in undertaking much of this work. It was also mentioned that there is 

 DO uniformity of opinion with reference to the value of large and small, or 

 light and heavy, kernels for seeding purposes, and that the results of experi- 

 ments along this line have not as yet settled this question definitely. 



The paper by E. G. Montgomery, entitled Method for Testing the Seed Value 

 of Light and Heavy Kernels in Cereals, elicited considerable discussion, which 

 finally led to the decision that the recommendations presented by the author 

 be sent to all members of the society, with a view to inducing other investi- 



