188 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 971 



actual crop correspondent and througli him 

 the local producer too late to be of practical 

 service. 



As a partial substitute for the printed Crop 

 Reporter, a Weekly News Letter to crop cor- 

 respondents will be issued in typewritten fac- 

 simile form. This can be prepared and put 

 into the mails sooner than was possible with 

 the printed Reporter. It is believed that the 

 weekly news will be far more timely than 

 notices issued heretofore only once a month. 

 Its circulation will be limited to official crop 

 correspondents. The News Letter will con- 

 tain summaries of more important discoveries 

 and recommendations of the various bureaus, 

 divisions and offices. 



The Experiment Station Record, the 

 Weather Review and North American Fauna 

 will continue to be issued with certain modifi- 

 cations. The Yearbook wiU be restricted to 

 articles of the magazine type, which, it is 

 believed, will add greatly to the popularity 

 and value of the volume, of which 500,000 

 copies are printed and distributed annually. 

 In the department series of bulletins all the 

 publications of the various bureaus, divisions 

 and offices will be printed. These bulletins 

 may be any size from 4 to 60 pages, and will 

 be semi-technical or scientific, or popular in 

 character. They v/iM capitalize for popular 

 use the discoveries of laboratories and scien- 

 tific specialists. 



The series of farmers' bulletins will be con- 

 tinued. The object of these bulletins is to 

 tell the people how to do important things. 

 The bulletins will contain practical, concise 

 and specific and constructional statements 

 with regard to matters relating to farming, 

 stock raising, fruit growing, etc. Under the 

 new plan the bulletins wiU be reduced in size 

 to from 16 to 20 pages, and will deal particu- 

 larly with conditions in restricted sections, 

 rather than attempt, as heretofore, to cover 

 the entire country. Much of the information 

 calling for immediate circulation will be is- 

 sued hereafter in the form of statements to 

 the press instead of being held back as hereto- 

 fore for weeks until a bulletin could be printed 

 and issued. The publication of bulletins deal- 



ing with foreign crop statistics will be discon- 

 tinued. Material of this character when 

 deemed important will be furnished to the 

 press for the information of the public. 



Consideration is being given to the discon- 

 tinuance of certain annual reports of bureaus 

 now required by law to be printed, with the 

 belief that much of the matter therein con- 

 tained is unnecessary, while certain portions 

 could be more advantageously and more 

 promptly printed as bulletins of the depart- 

 ment. All executive reports of chiefs are to 

 be reduced with the object of confining them 

 to strictly business reports. 



The new plan of publication work has been 

 designed primarily to improve the character 

 of the department's publications, and second- 

 arily to prevent waste in distribution, and 

 through the economies effected, a greater out- 

 put of information will become possible with 

 the available appropriation. Certain changes 

 will be made in the existing form of the pub- 

 lications, designed with a view to improving 

 their appearance, reducing their size and 

 adapting them to wider distribution. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 Charles F. Marvin, professor of meteorology 

 in the TJ. S. Weather Bureau since 1891, chief 

 of the instrument division, has been appointed 

 chief of the Weather Bureau, to succeed Mr. 

 Willis L. Moore. 



The council of the Eoyal College of Sur- 

 geons, London, has elected the following hon- 

 orary fellows : Dr. Harvey Cushing, professor 

 of clinical surgery at Harvard University; Dr. 

 W. J. Mayo, surgeon at St. Mary's Hospital, 

 Eochester, Minn., and Dr. George Crile, pro- 

 fessor of surgery at Western Reserve Univer- 

 sity, Cleveland. 



The trustees of the Beit memorial fellow- 

 ships, on the advice of the advisory board, have 

 decided to assist further research as to the 

 nature of the virus of sand-fly fever, a disease 

 which is the cause of much sickness in the 

 ships of the Mediterranean Squadron and 

 among the troops stationed at Malta and in 

 certain parts of India and elsewhere. The 



