May 2-2, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



831 



of tlie fungi. It is to be issued ' from time 

 to time,' and is sent for the nominal charge 

 of ten cents for the year. All who send this 

 sum are enrolled as members of the ' Ohio 

 Myeological Club,' and from the lists already 

 published this club is certainly a very live 

 and active one, since it enrolled nearly 150 

 names in less than a fortnight. While in- 

 tended for the beginner, these bulletins, of 

 which two numbers have been issued, are of 

 interest to the worker as well. Professor Kel- 

 lerman is to be congratulated upon having so 

 successfully launched this useful little publi- 

 cation. 



Chaeles E. Besset. 

 The Univeksity op Nebraska. 



CORNELL WORK FOR AGRICULTURE. 



The president of Cornell University in a 

 recent address before the College of Agricul- 

 ture of that university gave a very admirable 

 summary of the work of the college and its 

 relations with the state. 



The college was founded under the Land 

 Grand Act of 1862 and is, under that act, a 

 state college; but the state of New York has 

 done nothing for it until within a few years, 

 and the annual expenditures of the university 

 on free scholarships for the state have ex- 

 ceeded the sum total of all the contributions 

 of the state to the work. This address refers 

 mainly to the work of the college and of the 

 university in scientific fields and in promo- 

 tion more or less directly of the agricultural 

 interests of the state. 



The university provides about eight hun- 

 dred scholarships at a cost of about $250,000 

 per annum. Of these, six hundred are dis- 

 tributed to the one hundred and fifty assembly 

 districts of the state. They are ' state scholar- 

 ships.' The others are open to all and secured 

 by competitive examinations. The annual 

 cost of the College of Agriculture is $141,- 

 061.27, as for the last fiscal year 1901-1902. 



The state of New York does not appropri- 

 ate a doUar of this nearly $400,000. It makes 

 appropriations for the state colleges of for- 

 estry and of veterinary science, located at 

 Cornell University but not its property, $35,- 



000. It turns over to the university the less 

 than $60,000 per annum coming in from the 

 Land Grant Eund, which fund was the gift 

 of the United -States. It has built two build- 

 ings, which, however, remain the property of 

 the state. 



The College of Agriculture of Cornell Uni- 

 versity gives free tuition and has done so 

 from the first. The students in regular course 

 number about two hundred. There are en- 

 rolled in the Farmers' Eeading Course 30,000 

 students; in the Farmers' Wives' Reading 

 Course, 8,000 ; in the lYOO Junior Naturalists' 

 Clubs, 30,000; in the Home-Study Courses 

 about 15,000 teachers. Five himdred farmers 

 have conducted experimental work on their 

 own farms, under the supervision of the col- 

 lege. A correspondence school of- large ex- 

 tent is carried on, which gives instruction to 

 all agriculturists throughout the state. The 

 experiment station has published 196 bulle- 

 tins, of 20,000 in each edition, and 14 annual 

 reports. 



Members of the staff of the college are 

 sent out whenever an outbreak of disease 

 among either animals or plants is reported 

 and, if familiar, it is extinguished; if un- 

 familiar, it is studied and a way found of 

 preventing and curing it. In such an in- 

 stance, that of the pear-sylla, a million dol- 

 lars was saved to a single county, a few years 

 ago. 



This is work prescribed by the statutes and 

 the charter of Cornell University. It is car- 

 ried on mainly through the liberality, not of 

 the state, but of Messrs. Cornell, Sage and 

 other private contributors to the available 

 funds of the university. Illinois, Iowa, Wis- 

 consin and other states, similarly interested 

 in agriculture, are providing handsomely for 

 scientific work of this kind in their land-grant 

 and state colleges. New York gains much, 

 gives little. 



Professor Eobertson, Agricultural and Dairy 

 Commissioner of the Dominion of Canada, 

 after a three days' visit to Cornell, writes as 

 follows : 



" I do not know of another great university 

 that is doing the same sort of work. Insti- 



