July 19, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



n 



made on one or more main branches with the three widths of gir- 

 dle, July 12, 21, and 29. 



The results were as follows: ist, All the girdles made near the 

 ground healed over readily and completely ; 2d, Those on the main 

 trunk healed less completely, but sufficiently to insure a good 

 growth of tree and the covering of the injured part in another 

 year ; 3d, The girdles made in the branches healed less completely 

 than the last, and in two instances the new growth failed to meet, 

 and consequently the branch died soon after starting growth in the 

 spring ; 4th, All showed a marked increase in fruitfulness over 

 those not girdled ; 5th, Little difference was observed in the effect 

 of the girdling made at different times or in the various widths of 

 the ring of bark taken out. 



No definite conclusion can be made at this time as to the effect 

 of this treatment upon the permanent health of the tree. Observa- 

 tions for many years alone can determine the point. 



Reasoning from analogy and from the known laws of plant- 

 growth, this treatment can be advised only upon trees that are 

 planted too closely, and a part of which must be removed after a 

 time, to allow the full development of others, or those in very rich, 

 moist soil which are long coming into bearing. 



Cutting rings of bark from the canes of the grape-vine to hasten 

 the time of ripening has been practised more or less for many 

 years to prepare large specimens for exhibition, but only for the 

 few years past has it been practised to hasten the crop for market. 



In a series of experiments made in the college vineyard in 1877 

 and 1878, and recorded in the " Report of the Board of Agriculture 

 of Massachusetts " for 1S78 and 1879, it was found that removing 

 a ring of bark early in July, a quarter of an inch wide, resulted in 

 hastening the time of ripening from one to two weeks. 



It was also concluded, from very careful tests made at the time, 

 that the increased size and early maturity were not at the expense 

 of the quality, and that as far as could be determined at that time, 

 and which further observations have confirmed, the vines are not 

 materially injured by the girdling. 



Girdling has been practised in the college vineyard more or less 

 every year since, with favorable results. The canes that are to be 

 cut away at the fall pruning only have been girdled, to avoid any 

 possibility of injury to vine or root from stopping the downward 

 flow of sap by the girdle. 



Some seasons the results of this practice have been more marked 

 than in others, but generally the increased price obtained for the 

 early fruit has much more than paid expenses of the work ; and in 

 seasons of early frost, to which many sections of New England 

 are hable, it has made the difference between total failure and fair 

 profit. 



To save expense in the work, for the past two years the girdling 

 has been done by twisting a wire very firmly about the canes the 

 last of June, above the point where the cane is to be cut away at 

 the fall pruning. 



About No. 20 wire has been found best, and results obtained 

 have been more satisfactory when the wires were put on the last 

 of June or early in July, and twisted very firmly about the cane. 



While there is no proof that the vines are in any way injured 

 (notwithstanding that very careful observations have been made 

 for many years), it is not advisable to girdle the entire vine, but to 

 treat only those canes to be cut away at the fall pruning, and leave 

 about one-half of the vine to grow to a natural condition. 



LIFE INSURANCE.' 



I HAVE sometimes been a guest at public dinners when I have 

 felt much more at home and at ease than I do now. The last 

 time I was in this rcjom, a few days ago, it was at a meeting of 

 civil engineers, and I had a reasonable confidence that I had as 

 much practice in public speaking, at any rate, as they had. But 

 now, gentlemen, my experience with gentlemen connected with 

 life-insurance companies is that they can talk a great deal more 

 persuasively than I can. 



My business and your business, gentlemen, are connected in a 

 great variety of ways. 



^ A speech at the dinner of the Boston Life Underwriters* Union, April g, by 

 President C. W. Eliot of Harvard. 



In the. first place, I do not suppose there is any class of men 

 who are more suitable persons to insure their lives than college 

 teachers. They are almost universally poor, and they universally 

 desire to educate their children and bring up their families well. 

 They have a small, fixed income, and it is an income likely to last 

 as long as their working power lasts. And then, again, they know 

 that they generally live pretty long, to a time when their earning 

 power is impaired ; and against that time they make provision by 

 endowment insurance. So I have happened to know a good deal 

 about life insurance as seen from the point of view of a college 

 man. For such reasons as I have given you, I am insured myself 

 in three strong companies. 



Again : a good many young men are absolutely without re- 

 sources, but desperately bent on winning an education. Such a 

 young man induces some friend to lend him a thousand or two 

 thousand dollars, and take security in an insurance upon his life. 

 That young man is presumably ambitious, and has a worthy am- 

 bition, and, if he has the necessary physique, he is likely to suc- 

 ceed ; and to enable a few such young men to succeed in each 

 decade is a great object. 



I will mention still another service which I wish life-insurance 

 companies could render. There may be — there are obviously — 

 serious difficulties in the way ; but perhaps here is an opening for 

 new business. As your president has stated, it is the develop- 

 ment, comfort, and protection of families that insurance chiefly 

 provides for. Now, I have observed that the permanence of fami- 

 lies in good station — the continued usefulness of families from 

 generation to generation — can only be preserved in this country by 

 education. Nothing else will answer : no inheritance of money 

 will answer. You can read in the triennial and quinquennial cata- 

 logues how families live and die : some families continue to hold 

 leading places in. the community, and other families, which once 

 held such places, disappear. The cause, almost uniformly, for 

 their disappearance, is the ceasing of the higher education at some 

 stage in the history of that family. Men who know these things, 

 therefore (and college men are very apt to have their attention 

 drawn to them), desire some means of securing education to their 

 children. If nothing more, many of them would be greatly re- 

 lieved to be sure that every one of their sons could get four or five 

 hundred dollars a year for the years between eighteen and twenty- 

 four, for instance. And it seems to me that this provision is not 

 beyond the reach of life insurance ; namely, that a father, when his 

 boys are three or four years old, could be enabled to be sure that 

 his boys, as they grow up, should have successively the three hun- 

 dred or four hundred or five hundred dollars a year necessary to 

 make sure of their education. It is a limited kind of endowment 

 which is sought for, — an endowment which, in my judgment, 

 would go very far to secure the stability and effectiveness in the 

 community of families that have once reached a high state of edu- 

 cation and cultivation. 



I congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the sphere of your activity. 

 I do not know of any business which has to do more exclusively 

 with the best side of human life ; and that is a very great pleasure 

 and satisfaction in any man's life, that he has to do with human 

 nature at its best. It seems to me, from what I have heard of the 

 nature of life insurance and the kind of men with whom the agents 

 of life-insurance companies are brought into contact, that my friend 

 President Capen will be likely to tell you later that all life-insurance 

 agents are Universalists. They must feel, I think, that at least all 

 the men that they know who insure their lives are going to be 

 saved. 



It is a great privilege also, gentlemen, that your business in life 

 is, after all, the promotion, as the president has said, of the security 

 and happiness of family. I believe that the normal domestic joys 

 are the chief sources of human happiness ; and that, as the presi- 

 dent has said, on the family rest all the larger human organizations. 

 Therefore, when you work for the security and cultivation and 

 safety of the family, you work for all that is most precious in human 

 society. , 



The sixth annual convention of the Association of Official Agri- 

 cultural Chemists will be held at the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, commencing Sept. 10, 1889, at 10 a.m. 



