THE IRRIGATION AGE 



125 



v name and label and free from adulteration 

 and injurious ingredients. To this end an 

 extensive study of such imported products 

 has been authorized by congress and has 

 been rigorously prosecuted during the year. 

 The results of these studies have been in 

 a measure confidential, and instead of be- 

 ing published have been transmitted to the 

 secretary of agriculture for his guidance 

 in discharging the duties imposed upon 

 him by the act of congress authorizing the 

 investigation. 



''The extension of this investigation to 

 all imported food product will undoubtedly 

 prove of the greatest advantage to our 

 people, since it will result in the exclusion 

 of harmful and adulterated articles and of 

 those which are sold under a false and 

 misleading name of labels. In securing 

 these samples, we have had the active 

 co-operation of the secretary of the treas- 

 ury and of the officials of the custom 

 .house at the more important ports of entry. " 



The Chicago Tribune comments on a 

 musical folly announced by a German 

 scientist. He has discovered that plants 

 are sensitive to music and that some plants 

 unfold their leaves and are stimulated to 

 growth when sweet music is made, while 

 they close them again if the music be- 

 comes discordant. The Tribune thinks 

 well of the discovery and suggests that a 

 brass band might be usefully employed in 

 forcing the products of a truck farm, 

 while a mandolin orchestra could be used 

 to stimulate a flower garden. 



During the past year the weather bureau 

 ihas furnished daily weather forecasts in 

 11,621 cases, most of them to farmers. 

 Mr. Willis Moore the chief of the bureau 

 believes that no class of people better ap- 

 ipreciate these forecasts than those living 

 in agricultural communities. Farmers 

 ^who are provided with rural free delivery 

 and desire to receive these forecasts should 

 ^request the same from the Secretary of 

 Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



In his annual recommendation to con- 

 gress, the director of the office of Experi- 

 ment Stations urges the establishment of 

 an experiment station in Porto Rico (in 

 the vicinity of San Juan) on the usual 

 lines of such institutions except that in- 

 formation may be disseminated through 

 both the English and Spanish languages. 

 Secretary Wilson seems to think that con- 

 gress will so provide. 



The entomologist of the department of 

 agriculture is endeavoring to improve in 

 living condition certain European tree- 

 inhabiting predatory beetles for use against 

 the Tussock mothcaterpiller in the United 

 States, and especially against larva of the 

 gipsy moth. The lapse of appropriations 

 by the state of Massachusetts against this 

 last named insect and its possible great 

 increase and spread renders the introduc- 

 tion of its European natural enemies very 

 desirable. The bug scientists state that 

 if allowed its own sweet will, the gypsy 

 moth would spread over the entire country. 



A visit to Dr. Victor A. Norgaard, 

 Chief of the Pathological Division of the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry of the Agri- 

 cultural Department, found him care- 

 fully perusing some statistics which had 

 been compiled on the disease of black-leg 

 among cattle. 



"The action of Congress last session in 

 making an increase in the appropriation 

 for the distribution of black-leg serum," 

 he said after a few moments reflection, 

 "practically settled the controversy be- 

 tween the drug firms and the Department. 

 During the past year we sent out over 

 2,000,000 doses and the results, so far as 

 we have been able to learn, are more than 

 satisfactory. Of a total of 430,000 head 

 of cattle which had not been inoculuted 

 with the serum, the annual loss was some- 

 thing over 13 per cent, and last year an 

 examination by our assistants revealed a 

 loss of 16,000 or nearly 4 per cent of the 

 entire number. But since the dia- 



