236 
be spared in showing all its merits. It 
is advisable not to begin to advertise 
until three or four months before the 
time set for dissemination, or a few 
weeks before some important flower 
show, so that those interested may 
eagerly look for the new plant at the 
The Journal of Heredity 
exhibitions. If it is advertised too 
early people are apt to forget about it 
by the time it is to be introduced. 
Skillful and attractive methods used 
in advertisements and displays will 
almost entirely determine the reception 
and success of a newly introduced fern. 
Genetics in Education 
One hundred colleges or universities 
in the United States are giving courses 
specifically in either eugenics or genetics 
during the present school year, according 
to a census made by the Eugenical News. 
This list does not include the agricultural 
colleges, which present much of the same 
material in their courses on breeding. 
Unusual Fecundity in a Cow 
A remarkable case of fecundity in a 
half-blood Hereford is reported by E. C. 
Wetherbee, Jr., of Marshalltown, Iowa, 
a member of this Association. The cow, 
which belongs to William Harkemeyer 
of Benton County, was herself a twin, 
born in June, 1909. In December, 1911, 
she dropped two calves; December, 1912, 
one calf; January, 1914, two calves, 
and December, 1915, three calves. 
Feebleminded Adrift 
There are about 15,000 feeble-minded 
in Massachusetts, of whom 3,000 are 
now receiving State care, according to 
the League for Preventive Work (Bos- 
ton) which has just published a booklet 
with the title ‘““Feebleminded Adrift.” 
Of the 12,000 for whom no State pro- 
vision is made, many are protected in 
good homes. Another group are sex- 
ually passive, industrially competent, 
and capable of adjusting themselves to 
community standards. For neither 
class, it is declared, is State segregation 
necessary or desirable. Approximately 
2,000, however, can always be found in 
other public institutions. Those com- 
mitted to insane hospitals are usually 
held in permanent custody; the others 
drift in and out of almshouses, prisons 
and reformatories. These 2,000, there- 
fore, a constantly shifting group, repre- 
sent many thousand unprotected feeble- 
minded in the community, for whom 
custodial care is essential. 
The development of State schools for 
the segregation of the feebleminded, 
it is pointed out, meets the require- 
ments of economy, justice and efficiency. 
Their per capita cost for maintenance is 
less than that of other institutions. 
They furnish a simple environment 
which is adapted to the needs of defec- 
tives and which enables them to live 
happily on their own plane. They 
offer specialized industrial training which 
renders many of the inmates wholly or 
partly self-supporting within the institu- 
tion, transforming them from demoral- 
izing and destructive forces into pro- 
ductive members of the State. They 
furnish protection both to Society and to 
the feebleminded for whom community 
life means danger and _ exploitation. 
And finally, by permanent segregation, 
they prevent the procreation of a new 
generation of defectives, thus cutting 
off at the source one of the greatest of 
social ills and striking at the root of 
the physical and moral degeneracy, 
pauperism and misery, alcoholism and 
crime, with which feeblemindedness is 
inevitably linked. 
The Massachusetts State Legislature 
of 1915 appropriated $50,000 for the 
purchase of 880 acres of farm land near 
Belchertown, in the western part of the 
State, and it is hoped that the present 
legislature will appropriate $150,000 
annually for five years, for the construc- 
tion of buildings to house 1,000 inmates. 
