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tions which might have been thought to be too abstruse and 
recondite to be of any practical value whatever, have directly led 
up to the extremely important researches of Farmer and his 
associates into the essential nature of cancer ! 
“ Satisfactory as this undoubtedly is, we have only to look across 
the Channel to see how puny — numerically and financially speak- 
ing — are our efforts to promote original research. Our cousins 
across the Atlantic, a ees people if ever there was one, are 
even more energetic. oes a ‘freeze’ destroy or seriously injure 
the oranges of Florida, ne matter? In a very short time a 
man of science and a man of resource is on the spot. He looks 
for and finds a hardy stock whereon to graft the tender scion, 
he puts the resources of hybridization to the test in the endeavor 
to procure hardy seedlings. All this is done at once by state or 
government agency. Here, if anything were tried in a parallel 
case, it would be with deliberation and with little or no 
encouragement or suppor 
“Those familiar with er is done to promote research in the 
universities and colleges of the United States, as at New York, 
Chicago, Philadelphia, and in California, not to mention the older 
foundations of Harvard and Yale, must feel almost aghast at the 
progress that is being made, and at our own backwardness. In 
the Gardeners’ Chronicle for January 30 is an article contributed 
by a well-known professor familiar with what is beitig done here 
as well as there. Inthat article he gives details as to the astonish- 
ing activity manifested in the American universities, mainly by the 
aid of funds is ed by private individuals. We too have 
reason to know and appreciate what is done by the Government 
Agricultural pean and by the very numerous experimen- 
tal stations scattered all over the wide territdries of the United 
States. 
“ As we write, there come to us a report of the establishment, 
uspices of the Carnegie Institution, of a ‘ Deser 
Benge Labor ratory, the purpose of such establishment being 
to study thoroughly the relation of plants to an arid climate and 
to substrata of unusual composition.’ A laboratory has accord- 
ingly been erected near Tucson, in Arizona, under the manage- 
