330 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 354 



a small fraction of the coming demand. If, as has been urged, the 

 exhaustless stores of the atmosphere are not available to plants, 

 the outlook is dark enough ; but if the farmer may use his crops to 

 gather it, without money and without price, we may dismiss our 

 solicitude. With the assurance that plants obtain nitrogen from 

 the air, the fear of starvation for the over-populated earth of the 

 future may be ignored. That research is bringing the brighter 

 answer to this problem, there seems to be most excellent ground to 

 hope. 



WARM AND COLD WATER FOR MILCH COWS IN 

 ■ WINTER. 



Whether or not it is desirable in Wisconsin to warm water for 

 domestic animals, has been experimented upon by F. H. King at 

 the Agricultural Experiment Station at Madison. 



On the night of Jan. 2i, 1889, six cows were placed in stanchions 

 side by side, in two groups of three each, upon a daily ration of 

 five pounds of bran mixed with two pounds of ground oats and six 

 pounds of hay, together with what dry cut corn-fodder they would 

 eat up clean ; and this ration was not changed until after the close 

 of the experiment, March 25. During this time the cows were fed 

 twice and watered once daily. They were allowed the freedom of 

 the barnyard during the middle of each pleasant day, and in every 

 way received similar treatment, except that, when one group of 

 cows was getting water at 32° F., the other group took it at 70° F. 

 The time of the experiment was divided into three periods of six- 

 teen days each, having intervals between them. At the close of 

 the first and second periods the temperatures of the water were 

 reversed for each of the cows in order to eliminate, so far as might 

 be, the individual differences of the two groups. 



In plan this experiment contemplated as its chief object ascer- 

 taining whether it is true, as many farmers believe, that warm 

 water for milch cows produces a measurable increase in the yield 

 of milk over that of cold water, and, if so, whether this increase 

 affected the volume simply, or the weight of the solids contained, to 

 an extent which would make it remunerative in general practice to 

 warm the water for cows. 



The discussion of the results obtained has shown for these six 

 cows, while under experiment, the following facts : — 



1. While on warm water, they gave, on the average, 1.002 

 pounds of milk per cow per day more than while on cold water, or 

 6.23 per cent of the general average daily yield of 16.06 pounds. 



2. They drank on the average, daily, while on cold water, 63 

 pounds ; but while on warm, 73 pounds, or 10 pounds per cow 

 more. 



3. They ate more while on warm water than while on cold, and 

 at the rate of .74 of a pound of corn-fodder per cow per day. 



4. An increase in the amount of water drank was coincident with 

 an increase in the quantity of milk given ; and this was true irre- 

 spective of whether the water was warm or cold, an increase of 10 

 pounds in every 100 pounds of water drank being accompanied 

 by an increase of i pound in every 100 pounds of milk given, 

 nearly., 



5. They consumed solid food, while on warm water, at the rate 

 of 1.44 pounds for each pound of milk produced; and while on 

 cold water, at the rate of 1.54 pounds for each pound of milk 

 given. 



6. An increase in the amount of water drank, when the temper- 

 ature of the water remained the same, was associated with an 

 increase in the amount of water in the milk without a notable 

 increase in the total solids contained. 



7. An increase in the temperature of the water drank, rather 

 than an increase in the quantity of it, was associated with an in- 

 crease in the total amount of solids produced. 



8. There was a daily fluctuation in the percentage of water m 

 the milk associated with a fluctuation in the amount of water 

 drank. 



9. Five cows manifested a strong preference for water at 70° 

 over that of 32°, but one of the cows showed an even stronger lik- 

 ing for the iced water. 



10. With but one exception, the cows, while they ate less and 

 drank less during the cold-water periods, weighed more at their 



close, and, with but three exceptions, they weighed less at the close 

 of the warm-water periods. 



II. With butter at 20 cents per pound, skimmed milk at 25 cents 

 per hundredweight, corn-fodder at $$ per ton, and the cost of 

 warming water for forty cows 120 days at $15, the results obtained 

 from the cows on the experiment indicate that a net gain of $21.36 

 would be realized on a herd of forty cows averaging sixteen pounds 

 of milk per cow per day, and at least $10 on a herd of twenty, and 

 $5 on a herd of ten cows. Counting corn-fodder at $10 per ton, 

 the net gain on a herd of forty cows would still be $12.48. 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEECH. 



The new science of linguistic paleontology has thrown a flood 

 of light on several obscure problems of ethnology. It has, for in- 

 stance, been proved that the names of the ass and the camel in 

 Aryan languages are not primitive, but merely loan-words from the 

 Semitic. This fact by itself goes far to disprove the hypothesis 

 which placed the cradle of the Aryans in Central Asia, a region of 

 which these animals are natives. 



According to an article on the above subject by Canon Isaac 

 Taylor, published in a recent number of Knowledge, in no case 

 have more valuable results beeri. obtained than in the case of the 

 beech. This tree, which flourishes only in temperate climates, and 

 is a lover of chalk subsoils, is confined to a definite and restricted 

 area. It grows in the extreme south of Norway and Sweden, but 

 is not found east of a line which strikes across Europe from the 

 Frische Haff on the Baltic coast, near Konigsberg, through Poland 

 to the Crimea, ending finally in the Caucasus. 



In former times the limit was more narrowly restricted. In 

 Csesar's time the beech had not reached Britain or Holland, while 

 at the close of the bronze age, or the beginning of the iron age, it 

 was only just beginning to replace the oak in Denmark. Early in 

 the neolithic age its range was probably confined to France, north- 

 ern Italy, and northern Greece ; while in Germany, as Dr. Schrader 

 believes, it did not extend north of the Thuringian forest. It 

 flourishes in Macedonia, and clothes the north-eastern slopes of 

 the Thessalian coast chain, while in the south of Epirus the ilex or 

 evergreen oak replaces it as the characteristic forest-tree. 



Within these ancient limits of the beech we must place the 

 cradle of four Aryan languages, — German, Latin, Celtic, and 

 Greek. We draw this conclusion from the following philological 

 facts : the word for beech is, in Gothoic, boka ; in Latin, fagus; 

 in Celtic, faidhblnle ; while the corresponding word, ip?iy6c, de- 

 notes the oak in Greek. 



With regard to other merribers of the Aryan family, the names 

 for the beech — iuAy in old Slavonic, bickas in Lithuanian, and buk 

 in Russian — are manifestly loan-words from the German. This 

 would go to prove that the Slavs, in the prehistoric period, must 

 have dwelt east of the beech line, though they have since advanced 

 within it. Johannes Schmidt has shown reason for believing in 

 the unbroken geographical continuity of the European Aryans, 

 previous to the linguistic separation : hence they must be placed 

 astride, so to speak, of the beech line, — the Slavs and Lithuanians 

 in European Russia ; and the Celts, Latins, Hellenes, and Teu- 

 tons, farther to the west. 



We have now to account for the fact that the word denoting the 

 beech in Latin, German, and Celtic, has come in Greek to denote, 

 not the beech, but the oak. A well-known explanation of the dif- 

 ficulty has been offered by Professor Max Midler in the second 

 series of his lectures. He contends that the word originally de- 

 noted the oak, but that it was transferred to the beech at the time 

 when the oak-forests of Jutland were replaced by beech-forests. 

 But this does not account for the fact that the Latin •■NorA fagus 

 means the beech, for Helbig has shown that the Umbrians had 

 already reached Italy before the commencement of the age of 

 bronze. The bronze age began in Italy earlier than in Denmark, 

 and in the bronze age the oak was still the prevailing tree in Den- 

 mark, and was quite unknown in the neolithic age, when the Um- 

 brians, whose language was a dialect of Latin, were already settled 

 in Italy. The word fagus, therefore, must have denoted the beech 

 in Latin at a period prior to the change in the forest-growth to 



