424 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1425 



ment of deciduous fruits. The university has 

 furnished 20 acres of land together with irri- 

 gation water free of charge, and on this plot 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, under the direction of 

 W. F. Wight, is planting trees designed to be 

 a basis of extensive experiments in the breed- 

 ing, selection and domestication of various 

 fruits for the purpose of developing varieties 

 having greater disease resistance and better 

 adapted for cultivation than those now grown. 



Mr. Wight is in charge of the horticultural 

 and pomological investigations of the Chico 

 Experiment Station and cooperating with him 

 as representative of the university is Professor 

 Leroy Abrams of the department of botany of 

 the university. 



The Stanford campus was selected for an ex- 

 periment station because the Santa Clara 

 Valley supports a greater variety of deciduous 

 fruits than any other place in the country, and 

 also because Stanford will be the headquarters 

 foi' the work in fruit classification studies foi' 

 this part of the country, and perhaps ultimately 

 for the Pacific Coast. The library facilities, as 

 well as collections of the fruits to be studied, 

 are necessary for the work. 



The work carried on at Stanford will be of 

 local value to the Santa Clara Valley on ac- 

 count of the attention that will be paid to the 

 apricot and prune, but will be of wider scope. 

 It is planned to make a study of the varieties 

 of pears of high quality and resistance to pear 

 blight. It is hoped that the work will be of 

 value wherever deciduous fruits are grown in 

 this country. 



It is planned to carry on experiments through 

 a period of at least ten years with the probabil- 

 ity that they will be continued indefiniteh^ By 

 the agreement between the government and the 

 university, all plant material in the experiment 

 station will be available to the department of 

 botany of the university for study and investi- 

 gation, provided such work does not interfere 

 with the government's undertaking. The dis- 

 tribution of the material will probably be 

 through state experiment stations, nurseries and 

 to individual growers where the latter are in a 

 position to grow a given variety on a conunei- 

 eial basis. 



THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY 



The one hundred and fifteenth regular meet- 

 ing of the American Physical Society will be 

 held in Washington, at the Bureau of Stand- 

 ards, on Friday and Saturday, April 21 and 

 22, 1922. The first session will begin at 10 

 o'clock on Friday morning. 



The Association of Scientific Apparatus 

 Makers will hold meetings at the Bureau of 

 Standards on the same days as will the Amer- 

 ican Physical Society. Arrangements have 

 been made for a joint informal dinner on the 

 evening of Friday, April 21. It is expected 

 that addresses will be made by Dr. S. W. 

 Stratton in behalf of the Bureau of Standards, 

 by Professor F. K. Richtmyer, representing 

 the Association of Apparatus Manufacturers, 

 and by Professor R. A. MilKkan, representing 

 the American Physical Society. Arrangements 

 are being made for an exhibit of scientific ap- 

 paratus at the Bureau of Standards. 



The other meetings for the calendar year 

 will be as follows : The Thanksgiving meeting, 

 on November 25, 1922, will be held at the 

 University of Chicago. The annual meeting, 

 beginning on December 26, will be held in 

 Boston, in affiliation with the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science. 



The Pacific Coast Section will hold a meeting 

 at Salt Lake City, at the time of the meeting 

 of the Pacific Division, A. A. A. S., on June 22, 

 23 and 24, 1922. Correspondence relating to 

 this meeting should be addressed to the secre- 

 tary of the Pacific Coast Section, Professor 

 E. P. Lewis, University of California, Berkeley, 

 California. 



Dayton C. Miller, 



Secretary 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 A CELEBRATION was held at Bryn Mawr Col- 

 lege on April 11, in honor of Professor Char- 

 lotte Angus Scott, who has been head of the 

 department of mathematics since the college 

 opened in 1885. Professor Albert N. White- 

 head, of the University of London, came to 

 America to make the principal address. Among 

 those who planned to be present were: Pro- 

 fessors George David Birkoff, Harvard; Ernest 

 William Brown, Yale ; Emilie Norton Martin, 



