February 15, 1894] 



NA TURE 



0/ J 



April and May 1854, October 1855, and not at all in 1856. In 

 1852 Mars passed rapidly through the constellation, but in 1S54 

 he was nearly a month in exactly the position— "on the 

 Lion's breast" — described by Tennyson. From internal 

 evidence alone, therefore, the time referred to in the poem can 

 be fixed as the spring of 1854. 



Nova Aurig.e. — In a brief note to Astronoiiiische 

 Nachrichten, No. 3209, Mr. Martin Brendel says that he has 

 found Nova Aurigoe upon an auroral photograph taken by him 

 at Greifswald, Norway, on January 5, 1S92. It will be 

 remembered that Dr. Anderson announced his discovery at the 

 end of January 1892, and that Prof. Pickering afterwards found 

 the object upon photographs taken in December of the previous 

 year. 



A GRICUL TURA L EXPERIMENT S TA TIONS. 



"T^HE general British public regards with suspicion the grant- 

 •^ ing of State aid for scientific experiments. But though 

 the reluctance to give such assistance to pure science may be 

 partly understood, it might reasonably be expected that the 

 shop-keeping instinct would have led to the adequate ''endow- 

 ment of an applied science like agriculture. An article by Mr. 

 James Long, however, in the January number of the Record of 

 Technical and Secondary Education, shows how unfavourably 

 England compares with other countries as regards institutions 

 in which the scientific principles of agriculture are taught. \ye 

 have two or three excellent agricultural colleges carried on by 

 private enterprise, but it is a question whether they supply the 

 requirements of the practical farming class. Compare this with 

 what has been done abroad. " Some thirty years ago," says Mr. 

 Long, "the Government of the United States made grants of land 

 to each State for the purpose of establishing colleges. At the 

 time, the proportion handed over was 30,000 acres for each 

 senator or representative in Congress to which the State was 

 entitled according to the census-of i860. In addition to this 

 grant, large and frequent money grants in connection with the 

 agricultural sides of these colleges and to the experiment 

 stations, which have also been established, have been made. 

 Figures, which have been furnished to me by one of the officials 

 of the U.S. Government, show that in some instances the value 

 of the permanent endowment of each college exceeds ;!^ioo, 000, 

 while the interest brings in amounts reaching, in some instances, 

 to nearly /"io,ooo per annum. To this may be added the value 

 of the buildings which have been erected from funds supplied by 

 the Central and State Governments, which vary from ;ri^20,ooo 

 to ;^200,ooo, and these values are constantly increasing. The 

 first systematic attempt to teach agricultural science in America 

 was conducted at Yale, which, froai time to time, was followed 

 by Michigan, New York State, Kansas, and Massachusetts. 

 There are now some fifty State agricultural colleges, conducted 

 upon a recognised system by men of capacity, and generally 

 equipped in a manner which leaves little or nothing to be 

 desired." 



The work of these colleges is not restricted to the instruc- 

 tion of students in the science and practice of agriculture, for to 

 each college a State experiment station is generally attached. 

 In England experimental work in agriculture has been left 

 entirely to private enterprise. x\s Mr. Long remarks, were it 

 not (or Rothamsted our scientific work in agriculture would have 

 been sorry indeed as compared with ihat accomplished by the 

 people of other countries. In the United Slates there are more 

 than fifty experiment stations maintained by grants from each 

 State and the Central Government. 



One of the stations visited by Mr. Long, that of Geneva, in 

 New York State, has an income of ^^4000 a year, from which 

 it pays in salaries ^1650, and in wages ^1200. There are six 

 chemists on the establishment, in addition to the director, an 

 assistant director, a horticulturist, a pomologist, a clerk, and a 

 staff of workmen. No wonder that a large amount of valuable 

 work has been performed at the station during the last eight 

 years. 



Canada possesses five experimental farms of considerable size. 

 Roughly these farms cost ^15,000 a year, or ^^3000 a year 

 each, omitting salaries. Coming to this side of the Atlantic we 

 find that France has tiiree important agricultural colleges. l"o 

 the chief of these, that in Grignoii, near Paris, a large farm is 



NO. I26S, VOL. 49] 



attached upon which experimental work is conducted. Italy 

 possesses the experiment station at Lodi (Reale Stazione 

 Sperimentale di Caseificio), where instruction is given in science 

 and practice, and chemical investigations are conducted, the 

 funds being provided by the Government and the Province 

 and Commune jointly. Germany is full of agriculture 

 experiment stations. The station at Kiel is supported 

 by grants from the Central and Provincial Governments, and 

 combines instruction with experimental work. In Denmark 

 experimental work is carried on in the laboratory at Copen- 

 hagen, in experiment grounds, and at the Lyngby agricultural 

 school and experiment farm, which is a good example of the 

 Danish colleges. In Sweden and Norway Mr. Long visited 

 the agricultural schools and stations at Ultuna and Alnarp. In 

 addition to the usual farm, the former possesses an experiment 

 station conducted somewhat on the Canadian lines. The best 

 class of scientific investigations seems to be carried on at the 

 chief station near Stockholm. Mr. Long also briefly refers to 

 the systems of agricultural instruction adopted in Switzerland, 

 Holland, and Belgium. His report shows clearly that Great 

 Britain is behind other nations, both as regards State provision 

 for instruction in agriculture and the establishment of experi- 

 ment stations. It is quite lime that the necessity for these 

 stations was recognised by the Government. 



THE SPENCER-WEISMANN CONTROVERSY^ 



A S most readers of Nature are aware, a very interesting 

 ■^ controversy has arisen between Mr. Herbert Spencer and 

 Prof. ^Veismann. 1 he subject, although many minor issues 

 appeared, is that apple of discord of modern biology, the ex- 

 istence of an inheritance of acquired characters, and in necessary 

 association with that, the extent of the operation of natural 

 selection. The two approach the questions in sharply-contrasted 

 altitudes. Mr. Spencer looks at the problems of biology in 

 their philosophical aspect as part of the large field of abstract 

 thought which he himself has done so much to analyse, 

 synthesise, and codify. Prof. \Veismann, although best known 

 by his theories, has been above all things a minute investigator 

 of structural details. In the present controversy, Spencer 

 maintains that the weight of evidence and argument in favour 

 of the inheritance of acquired characters is so great that " unless 

 there has been inheritance of acquired characters there has been 

 no evolution." Weismann believes that there are insuperable 

 difficulties in the way ; that there is no evidence for such an 

 inheritance : that natural selectio.n is an all-sufficing cause. 



Mr. Spencer's first argument is drawn from the gradations of 

 tactual discriininativeness in the human skin. These gradations 

 range from the ability of the tip of the tongue to recognise 

 dou'ble contact in the points of a pair of compasses when their 

 points are onelwenty-fourth of an inch apart, to the ability of 

 the middle of the back which requires the i)oints to be two 

 and a half inches apart before double contact can be distin- 

 guished. It is a fair statement that these gradations are so dis- 

 tributed on the skin that those parts which are more used to the 

 opportunity of discriminating are more capable of discrimination 

 than parts with lesser opportunities. Spencer points out the diffi- 

 culty or impossibility of believing that minute increases of tactile 

 discrimination, as, for instance, distinguishing contact as double 

 when the points are one-twenty-fourth inch apart instead of when 

 they are one twentieth inch apart, could not determine the ex- 

 istence of animals, and so could not have been selected. On 

 the other hand, weie the effects of use inherited, the grada- 

 tions are explained. Against this, as against other individual 

 cases, Weismann points out that there are not sufficient data ; 

 we know little or nothing of how variations occur, and what are 

 the least variations that have value in selection. In the parti- 

 cular case of the tongue, one must remember that the tongue is 

 one of the most highly specialised organs of the highest exist- 



' ''The Inadequacy of Natural Selection," by Herbert Spencer. I. 

 Contemporary Zevicw,Yit\>r\i&r'j,iZ(il. II. id. March, 1893. 



"Prof. Wcis.Tia.in's Xhejries," by Herbert Spencer. Contemporary 

 Revieiv, INIay, 1893. 



'■ A Rejoinder 10 Prof. Weismann," by Herbert Spencer. Contemporary 

 Re7'ieiv, December, 1893. 



'■ Die All'iiacht der Naturziichtung. Eine Erwiderung an Herbert 

 Spencer." Van August WeUraanii. Jena : Gusav Kischer, September, 

 1893. (Of this an Eoglish rendering appeared in the Contemporary Rezieiu 

 for September and October, 1393.) 



