942 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Dr. J. Wortmann, the director of the horticultural academy at Geisenheim, has 

 lately been made an a(hisory member of the German Health Office on (jues-tions 

 relating to agriculture and forestry. He succeeds Dr. K. Goethe, also his predecessor 

 in office at Geisenheim, wiio has retired. 



A joint resolution ])roviding for the printing of the aimual report of this Office was 

 passed by Congress a few days before adjournment. It provides for 8,000 copies of 

 the report, 5,000 of which will be for the use of the Department, and makes it one 

 of the reports to be prepared and published annually without further provision 

 of Congress. This rej'ort contains the review of the work and expenditures of the 

 experiment stations, reports on the work in irrigation and nutrition, and miscel- 

 laneous papers relating to agricultural educatif)n and experimentation. 



Among the l)ills presented in Congress late in the session, which failed of passage, 

 was one to establish an agricultural exiieriment station in the Sixth Congressional 

 District of Mississippi, Avith an appropriation of $10,000; one to establish a system of 

 primary schools of agriculture in the Territories and insular dependencies of the 

 United States^ to be located upon farms, and to give practical as well as theoretical 

 instruction in farming, stock raising, farm engineering, and "the simple mechanic 

 arts required in the country," the course of instruction to occupy not less than 5 

 years; and a bill to create a Bureau of Agricultural Education in the Department of 

 Agriculture, for the purpose of devising the best methods of promoting agricultural 

 education throughout the United States, and to study the conditions and needs of 

 each Territory and the island possessions. 



A bill for promoting agricultural education and nature study in public elementary 

 schools has been introduced in the House of Commons, according to a note in Mark 

 Lane Express. Its object is to provide for the teaching of agricultural and horticul- 

 tural subjects, to give facilities for nature study, and generally by means of object 

 lessons to cultivate habits of observation and inquiry on the part of the pupil. To 

 this end it is proposed to maintain school gardens and collections of materials neces- 

 sary for the practical illustration and application of the instruction given. These 

 studies would be optional in urban schools, but compulsory in all schools situated in 

 rural and semirural districts. The bill is said to have the support of several promi- 

 nent members. 



The Central Society for the Beet Sugar Industr\- in Austria-Hungary is preparing 

 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment June 6, at its general meeting 

 to be held in Vienna. The society was founded August 4, 1854, and now embraces 

 all the sugar factories and refineries of Austria-Hungary. It maintains a chemical- 

 technical experiment station for beet-sugar manufacture, with a commercial labora- 

 tory, under the directorship of Friedrich Strohmer, located in the society's building 

 in Vienna, which also serves as headquaters for the nunierous sugar organizations. 



A departmental committee has been appointed by the president of the board of 

 agriculture for the double purpose of inquiring into and reporting upon the present 

 condition of fruit culture in Great Britain, and of taking steps to advance and encour- 

 age the industrJ^ 



The Association of German Scientists and Physicians will meet this year at Breslau, 

 September 18-24. 



Flo7-a and Sylva is the title of a new English publication. Vol. I, No. 1 of which 

 api^eared in April, 1903. It is a monthly review devoted to gardens, woodlands, 

 trees, flowers, new and rare plants, and fruits. Special attention has been given to 

 clear drawings and colored plates, to the use of large, clear type, and a high grade of 

 paper. The magazine will be found especially valuable to botanists. The first nine 

 numbers have been bound and indexed, and appear as Volume I. 



o 



