April 17, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



633 



lished "until after the bureau had expressed 

 its views." This much in justice appears 

 necessary to avoid placing criticism where it 

 may not belong. It can never be the privilege 

 of the head of a government bureau to sub- 

 Bcribe the names of subordinates to views he 

 knows they do not hold. Indeed, the interests 

 of science, if not a sense of justice, should 

 impel any chief to encourage in his subordi- 

 nates the greatest freedom of expression of 

 views on scientific problems of investigation 

 and to avoid in every way indicating the sup- 

 posed trend of lines of experimentation from 

 which data are sought. 



The true character of some of the more 

 recent evidence being presented in defense of 

 Bulletin 22, along the line of toxicity studies, 

 can be better understood from the closing sen- 

 tence in Cameron's preface to Bulletin 28, 

 when the facts in the case are known. Cam- 

 eron says : 



The authors of the present paper have had a 

 leading part in the development of the work which 

 the bureau has been conducting along these newer 

 lines of soil investigation, and it is believed that 

 the description of the investigations which have 

 made possible the production of a luxuriant lawn 

 upon a naturally unproductive soil at Takoma. 

 Park, Maryland, as well as helped in a very large 

 measure in the development of our present views 

 concerning soil fertility, will mark a decided step 

 forward in soil studies and prove suggestive to 

 other investigators in this most important branch 

 of applied science. 



The facts regarding the investigations 

 "which have made possible the production of 

 a luxuriant lawn, upon a naturally unpro- 

 ductive soil " in Professor Whitney's front 

 yard in Takoma Park, as pointed out by 

 Cameron, are these: In August, 1904, the 

 area to be treated was dressed with stable 

 manure at the rate of about forty tons per 

 acre and the soil, which at the time was 

 filled with a dense network of tree roots, many 

 of them large, making it diiEcult to dig, was 

 spaded and then seeded to lawn grass which 

 came up and, during the fall, looked well. 

 Cameron thought he saw the utter rout of 

 the bureau's toxicity demon from this lawn 

 and the transformation of a " naturally un- 



productive soil " into one of rare fertility. 

 But the severe root pruning and the loosening 

 of the soil incident to spading in the manure, 

 combined vsdth the fall rains and cool weather 

 which gave the grass seed exceptional facili- 

 ties for growth, at the same time provided 

 excellent opportunity for the development of 

 new and active tree roots, as was later dis- 

 covered by the bureau ; and early in the spring 

 of 1905, as reported in Bulletin 40, the ground 

 became " almost completely filled with young 

 active growing tree roots." The plain and 

 simple fact is, these roots so thoroughly 

 sapped the soil of its available moisture, ren- 

 dering it so hard and dry, that early in May 

 the grass had died. Nevertheless the preface 

 was allowed to stand. 



The new roots in the lawn soil were dis- 

 covered and the thought at once arose " that 

 these might exercise some malignant effect 

 upon the growth of grass." Five full table- 

 spoons of soil each were effectually paraffined 

 into the standard wire baskets; in these were 

 carefully transplanted young trees of pine, 

 maple, tulip, dogwood and cherry, two 

 baskets being reserved without trees as checks. 

 This done, equal numbers of germinated 

 wheat seedlings were set out about the trees 

 in the baskets and allowed to grow two to 

 three weeks, replanting as the stress became 

 too severe, until at the end of the season 81 

 trials had been made under such rigid labora- 

 tory control — and with the remarkable result 

 that in all but 10 of the 81 trials the green 

 weight of the wheat trials was less where the 

 wheat grew under the trees ! Moreover, the 

 bureau wisely observes, this reduced yield oc- 

 curred in spite of the fact that the roots of 

 the several wheat crops were left in the soil, 

 which must have acted as green manure and 

 thus tended to counteract the deleterious effect 

 of the tree roots on the wheat (p. 19, Bull. 40). 

 Then again, and with characteristic logic, the 

 better growth of wheat under the trees in the 

 last three crops is ascribed to the trees pass- 

 ing into the condition of winter rest. 



It is thus the pages run on and one bulletin 

 follows another, all having the same indeci- 

 sive and misleading character; all clearly 

 bearing the stamp of two minds, although dif- 



