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[May 30, 
1912 
in the training of teachers, pointed out the impossi- 
bility of such students learning hygiene and applying 
it intelligently unless it was absolutely and strictly 
based on physiology, and that physiology could not 
be taught unless students had a preliminary know- 
ledge of physics and chemistry. 
Dr. Edkins insisted on the uselessness of teaching 
hygiene as a collection of health maxims, on the 
necessity that the teacher should know something of 
the material, bodily and mental, upon which he had 
to work, and that no teacher could do justice to the 
subject of hygiene or to the children taught if his or 
her qualification were simply rule-of-thumb know- 
ledge and not genuine training in physical science. 
Dr. Myers advocated the close coordination of the 
teaching of psychology and of the physiology of the 
nervous system and sense organs. Psychology should 
be included in every scheme of training college 
approved by the Board, and all psychology taught 
must have a basis of physiology. 
The President of the Board of Education referred 
to the fact that the teaching of hygiene is universal 
in schools. He pointed out that the subjects taught 
in the training colleges were English language, 
literature and composition, history and geography, 
elementary mathematics, elementary science, the 
theory of music, principles of teaching, reading and 
repetition, drawing, needlework for women, singing 
and physical training, and that it would be very 
difficult to force other subjects upon these training 
colleges without sacrificing some of the subjects 
which the Board believed were more essential than 
the higher scientific subjects which the deputation 
desired to have taught. In conclusion, he informed 
the deputation that the Board thought that it ought 
to allow the effect of the Circular to be further 
realised before any step was taken in connection with 
it. The Board was not therefore prepared to suspend 
its operation. 
AMERICAN BULLETINS ON AGRICUL- 
TURAL SUBJECTS. 
pe results of the investigations carried out at 
the American experiment stations are issued as 
bulletins, and are sent out broadcast to all who are 
interested. Perhaps none of the institutions is more 
prolific than the Bureau of Entomology of the United 
States Department of Agriculture. In bulletin 97, 
part iv., Dudley Moulton describes the Californian 
peach borer (Sanninoidea opalescens, Hy. Edw.), 
which has been a constant menace to fruit-growers in 
certain districts. The adult moths fly from June to 
October, but are present in maximum numbers during 
July and August. The eggs are placed immediately 
after emerging, and after about two weeks the newly 
hatched larvz enter the tree. The protective wash, 
a mixture of lime and tar oil, must therefore be 
applied before the middle of June. Carbon disulphide 
is used to a certain extent as an insecticide, but it . 
has obvious disadvantages in that it is very volatile 
and combustible. Attempts have from time to time 
been made to replace it by a less dangerous liquid, 
and in bulletin 96 Messrs. Chittenden and Popenoe 
discuss the relative advantages of carbon tetrachloride 
and carbon disulphide as insecticides. It appears that 
the tetrachloride is less efficient and far more expen- 
sive, so that the problem is not as yet solved. 
Bulletin No. 11. of the Michigan Agricultural 
College Experiment Station contains some experiments 
by DG: Shafer, designed to ascertain how contact 
insecticides kill, a contact insecticide being one that 
works by enveloping the body in contradistinction to 
those that must be eaten to become effective. It 
NO. 2222, VoL. 89] 
appears that most of the vapours in use diffuse quickly 
into the insect tissues, and apparently reduce the 
oxygen absorption. If this conclusion is substantiated 
it will put the preparation of insecticides on a more 
scientific basis than has hitherto been possible. 
Further observations on a bacterial disease of the 
pear, known as Hold-over blight, are reported by 
W. G. Sackett, of the Colorado Agricultural College. 
It appears that the prevalence of the disease in the 
arid western climate has been underestimated, and 
that careful watch will be necessary to prevent further 
spreading. 
The special climatic conditions of New Mexico— 
rainfall from six inches per annum upwards and a 
warm climate—necessitate a corresponding degree of 
specialisation at the agricultural experiment station 
there. Bulletin No. 78 describes the cacti that occur 
most commonly, and the uses to which some of them 
may be put; it is considered that they might be used 
to a greater extent than they are as stock food. Both 
spiny and spineless forms have been tried with some 
measure of success, but the Opuntia are by far the 
most important for this purpose, because of their 
abundance. The Cylindropuntias come next, but they 
multiply too slowly to be of much value. The advan- 
tage of the cactus is, of course, its ability to utilise a 
scanty and irregular water supply; its disadvantages 
are that it contains a good deal of saline matter to 
which animals do not readily become habituated. 
Methods are suggested by which the live stock can 
be trained to take more cactus than they do, so as to 
increase the output of food material from each farm. 
NOTEWORTHY WEATHER RECORDS. 
ya interesting article on ‘‘The High Temperature 
of the Twelve Months May, 1911, to April, 
Ig12,” is published in Symons’s Meteorological 
Magazine for May. Dr. Mill points out that for 
the first time in the Camden Square (N.W. London) 
record there has been a run of twelve consecutive 
months in each of which the mean temperature has 
been above the average of fifty years. In 1911 the 
month of April was the only one below the average. 
The mean temperature for the twelve months above 
quoted was 53:1°, or 3-1° above the average. The 
nearest approach | to this figure for any twelve 
successive months in the past fifty-four years was 
528° for the period March, 1868, to February, 1869. 
The most severe frosts of last winter occurred in the 
first week of February, but the unusual warmth of 
the latter part of the month raised the mean tempera- 
ture 3-6° above the average. March was also very 
remarkable for its warmth, both the mean tempera- 
ture, 465°, and the mean shade minimum, 40°5°, 
being the highest on record for March. There were 
no frosts in the screen. 
The same periodical also contains an article on the 
rainfall of April last. In our issues of May 2 and 9 
it was stated that, so far as Greenwich is concerned, 
so small a monthly amount as o-02 in. had not 
occurred in the last too years. Referring to the rain- 
fall over the whole of England, Dr. Mill states :— 
“We may say with confidence that no previous April 
since the establishment of the British Rainfall 
Organisation has been so dry.’ An interesting map 
which accompanies the article shows that it was an 
exceptionally wet month in the west of Scotland, 
while, on the contrary, the east of Scotland had, for 
the most part, less than an inch of rain. In Treland 
the rainfall was little under the average for the 
month. The map shows very clearly another instance 
of the frequent divergence of rainfall at opposite parts 
of the British Isles. 
