Febri. Ak\ 23, 191 ij 



NATURE 



547 



land, and we also import much manure. Our great 

 waste in this direction is our failure to recover the 

 fertilising material from sewage; at present this may 

 be unavoidable, but there are other wastages — loss of 

 manures from our farms — that might be remedied. 

 We are far from blameless in the matter of forestry 

 also. The conservation movement is attracting atten- 

 tion in Canada, and it will, let us hope, become a 

 power there and also in the other dominions beyond 

 thi seas. First of all, however, the great educa- 

 tional crusade must come to impress upon the present 

 generation that our patrimony is not to be squandered 

 but to be used wisely, and handed on to our 

 descendants in as good a condition as possible. 



E. J. R. 



1 



INDIAN WHEA TFOR THE BRITISH MARKETS 

 HE last seven years have seen a rapid develop 

 ment of the Indian wheat trade with the United 

 Kingdom. For the ten years ending 1902, when our 

 average annual import of wheat and flour was 99 

 million cwt. from all countries, we received an average 

 ot 5 million cwt. from India; for the past seven years, 

 however, our total import has been 114 million cwt. 

 on the average, of which 16 million cwt. have come 

 from India. The increase is due to several causes. 

 Cultivation and irrigation have extended in India ; 

 the seasons in the northern provinces have, on the 

 whole, been more favourable since 1903 than they 

 were in the eight years following 1894 ; there has 

 been a great improvement in the means of communi- 

 cation by ship, railway, and road, and, finally, the 

 rupee has been maintained at the uniform rate of 

 sixteenpence since 1898. For the past seven years 

 the area sown with wheat in India has been more than 

 26 million acres, or about one-ninth of the world's 

 wheat area (estimated at 240 million acres), and the 

 average yield has been 116 bushels, one-eleventh only 

 of the world's output, since this yield is lower than 

 in many other countries. It is chiefly in the Punjab 

 that the increase has taken place, and, as larger 

 areas come under irrigation, this province will assume 

 more and more importance as a producer of the 

 world's food. 



Great Britain takes more than 90 per cent, of the 

 Indian exports of wheat, and the conditions obtaining 

 in our markets have therefore to be studied seriously 

 by the Indian producer, or rather by his expert 

 adviser. At present Indian wheat does not come here 

 in the beautifully clean, well-graded state in which 

 Canadian wheat arrives, and it therefore commands 

 a shilling a quarter less price. It is, however, more 

 valuable than English wheat, and usually fetches 

 about 25. 6d. a quarter more, chiefly on account of 

 its lower moisture content. The reason for its in- 

 ferior condition is to be found partly in the circum- 

 stances in which the wheat is grown ; most of the 

 Indian wheat is grown on small peasant's holdings, 

 and is threshed by being trodden out by bullocks on 

 an earthen threshing-floor, and winnowed by hand 

 in the wind, so that there is some mixing of varieties 

 and a certain amount of dirt naturally gets in. Sir 

 James Wilson states, however, that the wheat as it 

 leaves the farm contains only about i per cent, of 

 dirt, whereas when it reaches London the various 

 handlers have contrived to dilute it 6 per cent., so as 

 to increase their profits. It is considered that a 

 revision of the terms of contract would get over this 

 difficult}-. The other questions — the mixing of 

 varieties, and the low average yield — are matters for 

 the experiment stations, but it seems probable that 

 they can be satisfactorily dealt with. 



1 Memorandum on Indian Whrat f.>r ihe British Market. By Sir James 

 Wilson, K.C S.I., late Financial Commissioner, PunjaU (Agiicullural 

 Research Institute, Pusa.) 



NO. 2156, VOL. 85] 



HOTES. 



The portrait of Sir William Crookes by Mr. E. S.. 

 Walton, to which reference was made in our issue of 

 February 9 (p. 481), was presented to the Royal Society 

 before the ordinary meeting on Thursday last, February 16. 

 In the absence of the treasurer of the fund. Lord .■\vebur)', 

 the presentation was made on behalf of the subscribers by 

 Prof. Meldola, who acknowledged the active cooperation of 

 his colleague. Prof. Pope. The necessary fund was con- 

 tributed by about 130 Fellows of the society. Sir .Archi- 

 bald Geikie, as president, accepted the portrait on behalf 

 of the society in a graceful speech. Sir William CrocJ^es 

 also expressed his thanks to the subscribers for the honour 

 they had conferred upon him. In the course of his re- 

 marks he said that in two years he hoped to celebrate the 

 jubilee of his fellowship, as his election dated from 1863. 



Sir Joseph Larmor, secretary of the Royal Society, has 

 been elected a member of Parliament to represent the 

 University- of Cambridge, in the seat rendered vacant by 

 the death of Mr. S. H. Butcher. Sir Joseph is Lucasian 

 professor of mathematics in the University, and his elec- 

 tion as one of its two parliamentary representatives places 

 in the House of Ccwnmons a man of distinguished eminence 

 who should command attention in that assembly, and be 

 able to do something for the development of scientific 

 method in national affairs. 



H.R.H. THE Duke of Connaught has been elected presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society of Arts. 



The British Medical Journal announces that the Fother- 

 gillian gold medal of the Medical Society- of London, given 

 trienniallj-, has been awarded to Dr. F. W. Mott, F.R-S., 

 for his researches on the nervous system. 



-At a meeting of the executive ccwnmittee of the British 

 Science Guild, held on February 15, it was agreed that 

 the Guild and the British Empire League should dine 

 together, and it is hoped that it may be possible to enter- 

 tain the Colonial Premiers when they are over for the 

 conference. It was also reported that the Guild's com- 

 mittee on the coordination of charitable effort was in 

 communication with the Social Welfare Association for 

 London to see if it might not be possible for them to work 

 tc^ether. 



Dr. J. C. Braxner, professor of geolog\- at the Leland 

 Stanford Junior University, California, is starting on 

 April 15, with six assistants, on an expedition to explore 

 the western part of the north coast of Brazil. Its special 

 object will be to determine how far the distribution of. 

 Brazilian fauna is affected by the obstruction of the 

 Amazon River. The Government of Brazil has offered the 

 explorers the use of a gunboat. 



Dr. Edward G. Jaxeway, one of the foremost diagnos- 

 ticians in the United States, died at Summit, New Jersey, 

 on February 10, in his seventieth year. At Bellevue 

 Hospital Medical College, New York, he was professor of 

 pathology and practical anatomy from 1872 to 1879, pro- 

 fessor of diseases of the mind and nervous system from 

 1881 to 1886, and professor of medicine from 1886 to 1892. 

 From 1898 to 1905 he held the chair of medicine at the 

 medical school of New York University. He was health 

 commissioner of New York City from 1875 to 1882. 



The recent death-roll in America includes the name of 

 Dr. Leonard Parker Kinnicutt. He was born in 1854, 

 and spent his student period at the Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology, the Universities of Heidelberg and Bonn, 

 and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He held a 



