SCIENCE-SUPPLEMENT 



berries, oreliids and rhododendrons, if Dr. Co- 

 ville's experiments are applied on a large scale 

 vnth continued suoeess. 



This treatment g-ives promise of making easy 

 the cultivation of all plants Tequiring an acid soil. 



Orchids, aza/leas, kalmias and other difficult 

 plants, Dr. Coville believes, will be made to thrive 

 in common soils by this means. The discovery is 

 expected to prove of especial value to nurserymen 

 in saving them from the necessity of using peaty 

 lands to raise these flowers. 



■ Ehododendrons grow with great luxuriance in 

 sand mixed with peat, with rotting wood, or with 

 half rotted leaves, but they die in ordinary garden 

 soil, because its reaction is neutral or alkaline. 

 Partially rotted leaves are the chief source of soil 

 acidity. And the rhododendi-on must have an acid 

 soil. The alum or aluminum sulphate when first 

 applied has an acid effect and tMs acidity is con- 

 tinued mving to the fact that the Hme in the soil, 

 which would tend to make it neutral, is replaced 

 in the soil by aluminum and the released Hme is 

 leached away in the form of callcium sulphate. 



The growth of the rhododendrons has been stim- 

 ulated very greatly in this way. In one experi- 

 ment. Dr. Coville placed tliree plants in the same 

 sort of soil. One was untreated, another was 

 treated with Epsom salts and one with aluminum 

 sulphate. The untreated one failed to flourish. 

 The Epsom salts treatment ■ caused an increase in 

 diameter of 30 per cent., while the increase due 

 to the aluminum sulphate treatment was 250 per 

 cent. 



Most American crops are natives of alkaline or 

 neutral soils, and for that reason tlie most prom- 

 inent problem has been to prevent soil acidity by 

 the addition of lime. This is the first time that an 

 artificial means of converting an alkaline soil to 

 acidity has been worked out. 



COLD WINTER COMING IS BEST WEATHER 

 BET 



The coming mnter will probably be a cold one, 

 despite the heralded reipoTts from Norway telling 

 of warm weaitiier in the Arctics. ■ 



Major E. II. Bowie, forecaster of the U. S. 

 Weather Bureau, says that daily observations re- 

 ceived by radio from Spitzbergen, Iceland, and 

 Wrangel Island, as well as from the Amundsen 

 Polar Expedition north of Alaska indicate tem- 

 perature conditions contrary to tiose reported as 

 prevailing in the eastern Arctic by Consul Ifft at 

 Bergen, Norway. 



The abnormally warm weather said to have 

 been found in the eastern Aretdc is not confirmed 



by the records received from stations in other see- 

 itions of tihe Circle. Eeeently there was a big 

 snow storm on Spitzbergen, and from Wrangel 

 Island, beyond Bering Straits, reiports of exceed- 

 ingly low temperatures tave been made since 

 August. 



About the coming winter, Major Bowie says 

 that although meteorologists do not make definite 

 long distance weather forecasts, the chances are 

 that tlie appToacMng winter vnR be cold. The last 

 two winters have been abnormally warm, and ac- 

 cording to the law of probability it is unlikely 

 that this winter will follow suit. 



"V^^atever effect may have been produced by the 

 possible greater speed of the equatorial currents 

 carrjdng warm waters higher in the Arctic, as 

 claimed from Norway, this is not likely to modify 

 the winter in the Northern Hemisphere in general. 

 U. S. Hj-drographic officials here say they have 

 received no reports tending to confirm this greater 

 warmth of ocean current water and no unusual 

 ice or water conditions have been found tihis 



ITEMS 



Taxicabs in Havana use gasoline in preference 

 to the much cheaper alcohol, because congested 

 traffic conditions require quick starting ability. 



Many a rich Chinese merchant of to-day is 

 waked up by an American alarm clock, talks over 

 an American telephone, and rides in an American 

 motor-car. 



The size and height of roojus in native houses 

 in Japan are more standardized than the room- 

 dimensions in tlie houses of any -other countrj*. 



Long continued exercise of white rats increases 

 the weight of the heart, kidneys and liver, on an 

 average of about twenty per cent. 



Nobody on earth has ever seen the other side 

 of the moon, as that satellite always keeps the 

 same face toward us. 



In 1921 the people of the United States spent 

 ten dollars a person for candy, nine dollars for 

 education, fifty cents for chewing-gum, and 

 twenity-nine cents for health. 



Ehazes, Persian physician of the tenth century, 

 picked out the site for a hospital in Bagdad by 

 hanging pieces of meat in different parts of the 

 city in order to find the place least favorable to 

 putrefaction. 



Nearly all the varieties of coffee jjlant in the 

 western hemisphere are said to have sprung from 

 one plant imported by the French at the island 

 of Martinique in 1717. 



