December 8, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



747 



perimental and object-lesson roads built 

 under the direction of this office since its 

 organization is 96, with a total length of 

 about 39 miles. These roads were built in 

 38 states. The secretary proposes to util- 

 ize the services of the greatly increasing 

 corps of highway engineers and experts of 

 the office wherever practicable in the con- 

 struction and maintenance of roads in the 

 forest reserves. In order to secure engi- 

 neers with the necessary technical training 

 and to supplement such training by special 

 work for highway engineering, graduates 

 of reputable engineering colleges are ap- 

 pointed as civil engineer students in the 

 Office of Public Eoads. The work of such 

 students is of great assistance to the office, 

 besides being of practical value to the 

 public. The secretary believes that high- 

 way engineering should receive greater at- 

 tention at the present time in the colleges. 

 A Division of Tests has been organized in 

 the office, primarily to test road materials, 

 but the equipment necessary for this pur- 

 pose has been also available for testing 

 other materials of construction, such as 

 steel wire for fences, concrete posts, etc. 



The work of the Office of Experiment 

 Stations has greatly increased during the 

 past eight years. Through this office the 

 secretary exercises a certain supervision of 

 the federal funds granted to the experi- 

 ment stations. He says that the stations 

 have been not only a benefit in making the 

 department's work more effective, but that 

 they have by their own investigations 

 raised American agriculture to a higher 

 plane. He expresses the hope that con- 

 gress will recognize the need of providing 

 the stations with means to meet the de- 

 mands made upon them, and states that 

 there is no direction in which public 

 moneys can be appropriated that will bring 

 more certain and lasting returns than in 

 helping the state experiment stations. 



To diffuse among farmers the results ob- 



tained by stations, the department under- 

 took the publication of a series of popular 

 resumes of practical features of the station 

 work. Over thirty numbers have been is- 

 sued as a part of the Farmers' Bulletin 

 series. The secretary reports great ac- 

 tivity in the development of agricultural 

 education, and through the Office of Ex- 

 periment Stations the department has 

 taken a leading part in this work. The 

 permanent success of agriculture, he 

 argues, depends upon the technical intelli- 

 gence and knowledge of the farmers. In 

 this line of work the farmers' institutes, 

 established under the authority of the vari- 

 ous states and territories, furnish the most 

 useful agencies. Practical benefit to the 

 people interested is reported as the result 

 of the establishment of experiment stations 

 under the direct control of the department 

 in Alaska, Hawaii and Porto Rico. 



Nutrition investigations are conducted 

 by this office and during the past eight 

 years some 200 dietary studies have been 

 made, and not far from 800 experiments in 

 which the digestibility of different foods 

 was determined with healthy men under 

 normal conditions. It has been found as 

 the result of some of these studies that 

 white bread furnished the body with more 

 protein and energy, pound for pound, than 

 whole wheat or graham flour for the same 

 amount of grain, any deficiency in the com- 

 position of the white flour being more than 

 offset by its more thorough digestibility. 



The irrigation and drainage investiga- 

 tions of the department have resulted in 

 the systematic study of the agricultural 

 and legal features of irrigation. Measure- 

 ments of the quantity of water used in or- 

 dinary practise have been followed by 

 more careful experiments to determine the 

 frequency of irrigation and the amount of 

 water to be applied to get the best results. 

 The studies of irrigation laws have in- 

 cluded the collection of facts showing the 



