October 3, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



479 



Dr. Henry E. Eadasch, assistant professor 

 of histology and embryology at Jefferson Medi- 

 cal College, has been appointed instructor of 

 anatomy in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine 

 Arts to succeed the late Dr. George B. Mc- 

 Clellan. 



Db. C. C. Lipp, assistant professor of veter- 

 inary science at the University of Minnesota, 

 has been elected head of the department of 

 veterinary science of the South Dakota Agri- 

 cultural College. 



At Norwich University Dr. S. F. Howard, 

 formerly associate professor at Amherst Col- 

 lege, is to be head of the chemistry department. 

 J. E. Lear, B.S., formerly associate professor 

 in the Texas College, Texas, has been appointed 

 assistant professor of physics and mathematics. 



At the University of Pennsylvania Dr. 

 Thomas D. Cope and Dr. E. A. Eckhardt have 

 been promoted to assistant professorships in 

 physics; Dr. Walter T. Taggart to the grade 

 of professor of organic chemistry; Dr. Owen L. 

 Shinn to be professor of applied chemistry, and 

 Dr. Herman C, Berry to be professor of 

 materials of construction. 



Harry Waldo Nobris, A.M., professor of 

 zoology at Grinnell College, has been ap- 

 pointed to give instruction in zoology in Har- 

 vard University during the year 1913-M, in 

 accordance with the agreement with western 

 colleges. His term of service will fall in the 

 second half-year. 



Dr. M. Bartuzzi has been appointed to a 

 newly established chair of medical history in 

 the University of Siena. 



msCTJSSION AND COSBESPONDENCE 

 the bread supply 



In Science of August 22, 1913, appear 

 twenty columns of words from Professor H. L. 

 Bolley, entitled "Cereal Cropping: Sanitation, 

 a New Basis for Crop Rotation, Manuring, 

 Tillage and Seed Selection." Under this im- 

 posing and comprehensive title we find that 

 eighteen columns are devoted chiefly to be- 

 littling the work of chemists, agronomists, 

 bacteriologists, and also agricultural advisers 

 who accept the findings of such scientists. 



Occasionally Professor Bolley hedges with the 

 assertion that he knows plant food to be essen- 

 tial, and then renews the attack in such words 

 as these : 



On account of all these conditions of low yield 

 and invariable deficiency in quality, there has 

 gone up a great cry of ' ' depleted ' ' soils, ' ' worn 

 out ' ' land, ' ' bad agriculture, " " shiftless meth- 

 ods, " etc. This cry follows the plowman regard- 

 less of his improved tools and general farming 

 improvements, regardless of better methods of 

 tillage which we know now obtain on the farm, 

 as against those which our forefathers were 

 able to accomplish, and all regardless of hard 

 work. It is all right for the banker and the 

 lawyer, and even some professors, to berate the 

 farmer for idleness and ineificieney in methods 

 and lack of business, but I say let such men try 

 to raise wheat of high grade under the present 

 general understanding as laid down in books, or 

 by our best agriculturists. In spite of all these 

 directions, the wheat soon becomes soft and shows 

 all of the peculiar characteristics which we find 

 named in the literature of the chemical laboratory, 

 or in the milling tests of wheat as previously indi- 

 cated, "white-bellied," "piebald," or shrivelled, 

 bleached and blistered, ' ' black-pointed, ' ' in fact 

 all of the qualities of deteriorated grain; and the 

 chemist from his laboratory outlook cries out 

 "depleted soils," "lost fertility," "bad physical 

 texture," due to "worn-out humus," "lost nitro- 

 gen, " " insufficient phosphates, " " lime, ' ' etc., 

 forgetting, as it were, that almost every field in 

 these matters is a law unto itself and that every 

 one of these fields in the next few years may con- 

 tradict all these assertions by the growth of 

 splendid crops for reasons no one seems to know. 

 The expert agriculturist and agronomist, who take 

 their cue largely from the chemists, cry out: 

 "Give us intensified agriculture," "Apply phos- 

 phates," "Apply lime," "Apply potash," 

 ' ' Grow clover, " " Eaise corn, " " Eotate, " all in 

 a confused jumble, and lately the bankers, afraid 

 of their mortgages, have become very busy and 

 tell how to farm and seold rather strongly about 

 lack of business methods on the farm, berate the 

 schools, etc. 



These conditions of farm cropping, though not 

 exclusively American, are especially in prominence 

 at present because many of our most noted pub- 

 licists are becoming, perhaps properly, alarmed. 

 They say our farmers show no ability of main- 

 taining the supply of wheat, the bread grain, a 



