OCTOBEE 21, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



541 



always be in contact with sufficient mois- 

 ture to allow them to make a normal, 

 sturdy growth, have gone on in such a 

 careless manner as to greatly reduce the 

 wheat yields of all countries wherever such 

 cropping has been practised upon a large 

 scale such as is known in the new lands of 

 the northwest. Where this contamination 

 of soil has occurred the loss of the flax 

 crop has been unavoidable, and profitable 

 wheat raising has only been continued 

 under intensified farming conditions. My 

 belief is that we must yet be able to pro- 

 duce the bread of the world by the use of 

 extensive machinery and upon extensive 

 plans, such as is yet being carried on in 

 the new lands of the west. I have set forth 

 the reasons ivhy this can not he done un- 

 less we recognize this question of soil sani- 

 tation, or, if you wiU, the necessity of con- 

 serving the virgin purity of the land. I 

 am, however, confident that with the 

 proper understanding of the methods 

 which are now known for selecting seed, 

 disinfecting seed, rotating crops and per- 

 fecting the seed bed there should be 

 no necessity of growing wheat upon the 

 costly lands now under intensified farming 

 systems, and that there is no immediate 

 necessity of abandoning the cropping to 

 cereals on the large plan which is char- 

 acteristic of the northwest. I believe 

 firmly, however, if we do not thus rec- 

 ognize this matter of the necessity of soil 

 sanitation, soil disinfection by means of 

 proper cultivation, and well-planned series 

 of crop rotation, that, no matter how fer- 

 tile the soil of one of your western valleys 

 may be, no distant year will see your crop 

 fall very close to the world average for 

 that particular cereal. 



This message, if so it may be called, has 

 also a dii'ect bearing upon matters in which 

 you are interested which I think you will 

 thoroughly appreciate. Those of you who 



are directly interested in dry land farming 

 may expect these diseases to be less effect- 

 ive under dry farming conditions than 

 under the old-line cropping methods. For 

 the dry farming methods and the dry at- 

 mospheric conditions are just such as tend 

 to keep such cereal organisms in best con- 

 trol. If, however, you wilfully spread dis- 

 eases upon your lands through infected 

 seed and through infected fresh, uncom- 

 posted manures, if you wilfully neglect to 

 rotate and if you fail to properly aerate 

 and firm down the seed bed, you may ex- 

 pect these destructive cereal diseases to 

 take their annual quota from your crop, 

 and that the crop depletion will increase 

 with the years. There seems to be no ex- 

 ception to the common observation that the 

 living can not thrive in contact with the 

 dead of the same species. 



If, on the other hand, you declare for 

 careful seed selection in all cases, careful 

 seed disinfection at all times, the formation 

 of a well-aerated but compacted seed bed, 

 and for as extensive a rotation of crops of 

 as wide-spread character as possible, you 

 of the new dry land regions of the west 

 have the greatest possible opportunity to 

 prove to the world that it is not necessarj' 

 to lose a crop of such importance as lin- 

 seed from among your rotations, nor is it 

 necessary that your wheat yields should 

 fall from the now promising ones of thirty 

 to sixty bushels per acre to the general 

 average of twelve to fifteen. 



H. L. BOLLEY 



North Dakota Aqeicultubal College, 

 September 20, 1910 



THE FOURTH OOyPERE'NCE OF THE INTER- 

 NATIONAL UNION FOR COOPERATION 



IN SOLAR RESEARCH 



The main party of delegates to the fourth 



Conference of the International Union for 



Cooperation in Solar Eesearch arrived in 



Pagadena on August 28. On the following 



