280 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 817 



the publisher are both to be congratulated 

 upon the real excellence of their work. 



Edw.\ed W. Berry 

 Johns Hopkins Univebsiit 



BOTANICAL NOTES 

 AN EXPERIENCE AND A SUGGESTION 



It was the writer's good fortune to be asked 

 to take part in the work of the first week of 

 the fourth session of the Graduate School of 

 Agriculture held at the Iowa State College, 

 Ames, Iowa, during July. 



Having had no previous experience with 

 this national school, which meets biennially, 

 the writer was not prepared to find, as he did, 

 the work of such high grade. There were 

 lectures on plant breeding, plant physiology, 

 the soil scientifically considered, the scientific 

 basis of " hardiness " of plants, the scientific 

 basis of animal husbandry, agricultural eco- 

 nomics, the bacteriology of dairying, the sci- 

 entific breeding of poultry, irrigation, etc. In 

 addition to the lectures, which were usually 

 scheduled for the forenoon and the early part 

 of the afternoon, there were held in each sub- 

 ject two-hour seminars in which the topics 

 which had been presented by the lecturers 

 were freely discussed by the listeners, and the 

 lecturer was asked to present more in detail 

 the matter presented in a general way in the 

 lecture. This proved to be very helpful to 

 lecturers and audience. 



The week's experience of the writer leads 

 him to the conclusion that in the Graduate 

 School of Agriculture, as now managed, the 

 scientific men of the country have an organ- 

 ization of very great importance. The lec- 

 tures and the discussions were of such a high 

 order as would have taxed the Icnowledge of 

 any of the larger scientific bodies which meet 

 annually in this country. The writer suggests 

 that in the meetings of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science some- 

 thing of the plan carried out in this School of 

 Agriculture should be adopted. One who has 

 attended the meetings of the American Asso- 

 ciation for many years realizes that much is 

 lost by the fact that usually there is no unity 

 in the program for any day; occasionally in 



the later years we have had a symposium on 

 one subject, and it has been the general feel- 

 ing that the symposia have been the most suc- 

 cessful parts of the programs. The writer 

 suggests that there might well be several sub- 

 jects (in botany, for example) which should 

 receive especial attention in the week given to 

 the presentation of papers. Thus there might 

 be at a stated hour each day a lecture by a 

 master on, say, the subject of cytology, and 

 another lecture each day at a stated hour, on 

 morphology, while another might be given on 

 physiology, and possibly more, and then for 

 each evening in some convenient room, a sem- 

 inar meeting could be held on one of the sub- 

 jects presented by the lecturers. 



The writer feels that his experience at 

 Ames, where the air was full of the most 

 modern science, warrants him in suggesting 

 that the men who constitute the membership 

 of the scientific societies have something to 

 learn from this Graduate School of Agri- 

 culture. 



THE ACTION OP THE BRUSSELS CONGRESS 



From the reports which have reached us 

 regarding the action taken by the Interna- 

 tional Botanical Congress at Brussels it is 

 evident that while gratifying progress has 

 been made in the attempt to reduce the nom- 

 enclature of botany to uniformity much still 

 remains to be done. However, we must not 

 overlook the fact that to have come to some 

 agreement, and to have formulated rules cov- 

 ering so many points is itself a triumph for 

 those who have insisted upon the need of 

 rules. It is not so very long ago that certain 

 botanists were " a law unto themselves," to the 

 disgust and indignation of others who were 

 the advocates of the application of a general 

 law. That was a condition of anarchy, which 

 happily we are now delivered from. The 

 Vienna Congress, and later the Brussels Con- 

 gress, have emphasized the fact that botanists 

 the world over are willing to come to an agree- 

 ment in this matter of nomenclature. And 

 this is a great gain. Once this is accom- 

 plished it will be only a question of time as to 

 the enactment of the best rules. To be will- 



