Apkil 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



635 



the type cheerfully lives in the aquarium, 

 feeding on mosquito larvse and little tadpoles. 

 Who will find a second specimen? 



David Starr Jordan. 



QUOTATIONS. 



THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



There is grumbling all the time on account 

 of the continually increasing demands of the 

 Department of Agriculture. For the fiscal 

 year 1897-98 its appropriation was $3,182,902. 

 For the current year the appropriation is 

 $5,478,160, and the department will cost 

 $6,229,880 next year. 



Although the amount spent by the depart- 

 ment is large, other countries are expending 

 proportionately more each year for the same 

 purposes. The latest obtainable figures, as 

 given in a recent report from the senate com- 

 mittee on agriculture and forestry, show these 

 to be the appropriations of several foreign coun- 

 tries for the encouragement of agriculture : 



France $ 9,020,000 



Austria 9,275,000 



Hungary 9,400,000 



Russia 25,280,000 



Japan 3,750,000 



In order that these figures may mean some- 

 thing, the conunittee has calculated the 

 amount spent by each nation, including the 

 United States, for each acre of tillable land 

 and for each person in the agricultural popu- 

 lation. These figures are : 



EXPENDITURE PEE ACRE OF AGRICULTURAI, LAND. 



Cents. 



France 9.8 



Austria 13.3 



Hungary 12.4 



Russia ( about ) 4 



United States .' 1.3 



EXPENDITURE PER CAPITA OF AGRICULTURAL 

 POPULATION. 



Cents. 



France 52 



Austria 69 



Hungary 90 



United States 35 



Eussia, with an area of 8,660,395 square 

 miles, maintains 102 experiment stations, or 

 one to every 84,906 square miles. The United 

 States, with 3,692,125 square miles, has sixty 



experiment stations, or one to every 61,535 

 square miles. The other extreme is reached 

 with Belgium, where, in a country containing 

 11,373 square miles, fifteen experiment sta- 

 tions, or one to every 758 square miles of ter- 

 ritory, are maintained. Germany and France 

 maintain a station for every 3,000 square 

 miles of their territory, roughly. In no sec- 

 tion of the United States are there as many 

 stations in proportion to the land surface as 

 there are in Germany and France. In the 

 states on the Atlantic seaboard there is one 

 station to every 24,000 square miles of land. 

 Texas, with one federal experiment station, 

 is 27 per cent, larger than all of France and 

 Germany, with their 151 stations. The ratio 

 of experiment stations to area in France and 

 Germany is 96 to 1 as compared with Texas, 

 28 to 1 as compared with Minnesota and the 

 Dakotas, and 39 to 1 as compared with our 

 Pacific states. 



The quarrel that the public has with the 

 Department of Agriculture does not hinge on 

 the amount of its annual appropriation. 

 There has never been any disposition to treat 

 it in a niggardly fashion, but the impression 

 is general that great sums of money are wasted 

 on frivolous enterprises. 



The free distribution of seeds is the most 

 notorious of the improper expenditures of 

 which the system is guilty, and the amount of 

 money involved in this is about the same as 

 the annual increase in the appropriation 

 granted by congress. The Weather Bureau, 

 which costs the department $1,330,000 a year, 

 is pretty generally laughed at now. 



If the department devotes itseK to its legiti- 

 mate business, and accomplishes its functions 

 properly, it will not be hampered by any lack 

 of funds.— The IST. Y. Sun. 



JAMES HYATT. 

 Dr. James Hyatt died at Bangall, N. Y., 

 on February 27, in the eighty-seventh year of 

 his age. He was one of the earliest members 

 of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, also a member of the New 

 York Lyceum of Natural History, now the 

 Academy of Sciences, and one of the founders 

 of the Torrey Botanical Club. With him 



