594 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 982 



however, that when a suitable season for the 

 production of soft wheat occurs again, the 

 crop will be quite as soft as in 1902. 



A careful series of milling and baking tests 

 of wheat from highly fertilized and exhausted 

 soils (or soils on which wheat had been grown 

 repeatedly) was made by me a few years ago. 

 These results have not yet been published, but 

 they prove, in so far as one series of tests can 

 prove anything, that there is no essential differ- 

 ence in flour quality between samples of wheat 

 raised under the two extreme conditions. I 

 have not seen any trustworthy evidence what- 

 ever that wheat grown on poor soil (whether 

 " exhausted " or " sick ") is inferior for mill- 

 ing and baking purposes to that grown under 

 more favorable conditions, except as regards 

 plumpness, and even there I am not at all sure 

 that the smaller crop from poor soils is as a 

 rule distinctly less plump. I suspect that the 

 lower yield, which is, of course, obtained, is 

 due essentially to a smaller number of kernels 

 rather than to imperfect development of them. 



I hope that Professor BoUey will find time 

 to give to the public some of the evidence on 

 which his statements are based, especially the 

 milling and baking tests, and some instances 

 of " vital deterioration in quality of seed," due 

 to manuring. 



Chas. E. Saunders 



Experimental Farm, 

 Ottawa, Canada, 

 October 8, 1913 



" QUITE a few " 



To THE Editor of Science: The criticism 

 of T. G. Dabney, in Science of September 5, 

 of the phrase " quite a few," used by Pro- 

 fessor Bolley in his paper in Science of July 

 11, is calculated to excite a surprise among 

 his rea,ders equal, probably, to that which Mr. 

 Dabney himself feels towards Professor Bol- 

 ley. But " quite a few " conveyed Professor 

 Bolley's meaning perfectly, and, for myself, 

 I can not think of a satisfactory equivalent 

 that could have been substituted. Quite a 

 number is a phrase suificiently commonplace, 

 probably — if it had been used — to have es- 

 caped Mr. Dabney's eagle eye, but is no more 



precise. What more can an essayist ask, and 

 what can a reasonable critic object to, if a 

 writing is so worded — albeit slightly colloquial 

 • — that its meaning is taken instantly? 



If purists are to pounce on all our collo- 

 qualisms whenever they happen to be found 

 isuing,"from a learned teacher, in a scien- 

 tific disquisition in a scientific journal " and 

 articles are to be reduced to the cast-iron re- 

 quirements of such critics, then the readers 

 thereof will lose some valuable time. For it 

 takes time to get the meaning of a thorough- 

 going pedant. What should be said, for in- 

 stance, of the phrase " pretty nearly," which is 

 pretty common, I believe, among good writers ? 

 " Pretty " refers to the looks of a thing. 

 Would anybody say that " pretty nearly " must 

 be taken to mean nearly pretty? Then there 

 is " Now then," a favorite phrase of lecturers 

 introductory to the elucidation of some point 

 just previously dated. If it means now, Mr. 

 Dabney might say, it can not mean then. 

 Take the word "scientist," which is ad- 

 mittedly a barbarism and one that has been 

 fought against for forty years, yet sticks in 

 the language like a burr, because of its use- 

 fulness — what are we going to do with that? 

 Why, use it, of course, and snap our fingers at 

 etymology and consistency, for it takes the 

 place of three words and can not possibly be 

 misunderstood. 



The fact is, the English language defies ar- 

 gument. Vagrant words, phrases and sen- 

 tences, illogical and intolerable at first, are 

 every -now and then creeping into usage and 

 refusing to be turned out. In the beginning 

 they may excite loathing, then they are simply 

 frowned on and avoided whenever possible — 

 though often through considerable circumlo- 

 cution — but in the end they become " good 

 English." And the chances are that some 

 day we are astonished to find some of them in 

 Shakespeare — ^like " a bum bailiff," for ex- 

 ample, which he who looks for will find there. 

 The meaning to be conveyed is the desid- 

 eratum above everything else. That may be 

 developed with much labor, in sentences al- 

 ways capable of parsing and always logical, 

 or the writer may show a little more elasticity 



