JuHB 12, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



927 



opportunities for ascertaining their natural 

 condition are growing less every year, so no 

 time should be lost. 



We have very little definite knowledge of 

 the flowering periods, modes of dissemination, 

 natural habitats and boundaries of the ranges 

 of some of our most familiar plants. To illus- 

 trate some of the many taxonomic, geograph- 

 ical, ecological, phaenological and statistical 

 problems which now confront us, a list of 

 about twenty illustrative questions was sub- 

 mitted, and recommended to the consideration 

 of the members of the club. Answers to them, 

 or suggestions of similar questions, were ear- 

 nestly invited. 



The paper will be published in full in a 

 future number of Torreya. 



Exhibition of Specimens recently collected in 

 Jamaica,, with Remarks: N. L. Britton. 

 A specimen was exhibited of the nest of the 

 Jamaica swift made from the downy seeds of 

 species of Tillandsia, and presented to the 

 New York Botanical Garden by F. B. Stur- 

 ridge, Esq., of Union Hill, Moneague, Ja- 

 maica. 



Fruits were also shown of the Jamaican 

 species of Hernandia, preserved in formalin, 

 together with herbarium specimens from the 

 same tree, found by Mr. William Harris and 

 myself on the wooded hill near Dolphin Head, 

 a mountain near the western end of Jamaica, 

 and collected March 21, 1908. This tree is 

 one of the largest of the Jamaican forests and 

 apparently either very rare or very local in its 

 distribution. It attains a height of at least 

 30 meters and a trunk diameter of over a 

 meter. It has not been very definitely known 

 to botanists, inasmuch as Patrick Browne in 

 the " Civil and Natural History of Jamaica," 

 published in 1Y56, knew of its occurrence 

 there only by rumor, and it is not recorded 

 for Jamaica by Grisebach in the " Flora of 

 the British West Indian Islands." In the 

 treatment of the genus in De Candolle's 

 " Prodromus," Meissner attributes it to Ja- 

 maica on the authority of Patrick Browne, 

 but Mr. Harris, in his extensive exploration 

 of the forests of the island, had not been able 

 to find much of it until this discovery near 



Dolphin Head, where a tree some 20 meters 

 high was cut down and fine fruiting specimens 

 obtained. An examination of these specimens 

 in comparison with those of the other species 

 indicates that the Jamaican tree differs from 

 those of the other West Indies and of the East 

 Indies, and should be defined as a species nevr 

 to science. C. Stuart Gager, 



Secretary 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE ADAMS FUND 



It is needless to repeat in this paper what 

 the Adams Act is, except to emphasize that 

 the appropriation was made for the purpose 

 of conducting original investigations in all 

 branches of agricultural science, and that 

 those institutions and investigators that draw 

 from the funds keep before them the obliga- 

 tion under which they are placed when they 

 accept the conditions of the funds. There is, 

 I think, a certain class of workers in the 

 experiment stations who fear that the work 

 under the Adams Fund will prove too tech- 

 nically scientific, and therefore seem to think 

 that greater latitude should be accorded each 

 station in the use of its pro rata of the funds. 



During the many years that experiment 

 stations have existed in this country, with few 

 exceptions, they have done mostly demonstra- 

 tive work, and results have necessarily been 

 empirical, and admitted only of local applica- 

 tion. Many of them have spent their time 

 and energy farming, and making special ex- 

 periments with fads, trying to eradicate " fogy 

 notions " about the effect of the dark and light 

 nights on planting ordinary farm crops, or 

 satisfying any popular belief. The demanHs 

 that have arisen from time to time among the 

 farmers, especially the southern farmers, have 

 been of this nature, and have determined in 

 a great measure the progress of some of the 

 stations. Even now, we sometimes hear argu- 

 ments to the effect that exjjeriment station 

 work should never overshoot the heads of the 

 average farmers, and even in scientific work 

 we should try to simplify the work so the 

 farmer can understand it. 



I am by no means a favorer of anything 



