732 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 517. 



tricts in the entire west. The features of the 

 system of farming which separate this from 

 other sections are complete crop rotation and 

 maintenance of soil fertility by means of live 

 stock. Dairying and stock raising have a 

 firm place in one of the most completely de- 

 veloped systems of cultivation in the Missis- 

 sippi valley. In essential respects this sec- 

 tion is comparable to the system of farming 

 to be found at its best in eastern Pennsylvania, 

 especially in the Susquehanna valley. Since 

 1895 prices of land have gone up throughout 

 the central and northwestern states, to a level 

 which no one could possibly have anticipated. 

 Farm lands in Illinois (west central) sell 

 from $100 to $150 per acre, along the route of 

 the 0. B. & Q. E. E. The tenant pays a 

 rental of from $5.00 to $7.00 per acre and has 

 made money at that. But he has in all prob- 

 ability not made money enough to induce him 

 to invest it in farm lands there. The value 

 of lands has reached a point at which he can 

 earn more on his capital as a tenant than as an 

 owner of high-priced lands. Consequently 

 tenantry and landlordship are on the growth 

 with the rise of the purchase price of agricul- 

 tural lands. 



One explanation of this rise in land values 

 is the presence of siirplus capital in the hands 

 of farmers. A farmer who had his farm 

 nearly or entirely paid for before the rise of 

 farm prices since 1895 has been able, as a rule, 

 to put money in the bank year by year. If 

 he has not put it into securities which the 

 financial centers of the country manufactured 

 for consumption by the money-making public, 

 he naturally may be expected to avail himself 

 of opportunity to buy land as it comes into the 

 market. This form of interest he knows some- 

 thing about, and he puts his saving-s in it re- 

 gardless of the low rate of returns he knows 

 he must get. But he knows it is sure. Take 

 a corresponding case in land values in Penn- 

 sylvania. Farms are being sold in much of 

 the most improved portion of that state at 

 prices which represent little more than the 

 value of the improvements. Farm land in 

 a high state of cultivation is valued at less 

 than has been the case for some years. Pro- 

 ductivity has not declined and prices have 



improved with the general rise of agricultural 

 prices. Where then does the cause for the 

 difference in values in western and eastern 

 farming lands lie ? 



John Franklin Crowell. 

 Washington, D. C. 



THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

 The autumn meeting of the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences was held at Columbia Uni- 

 versity on November 15 and 16. No business 

 of general interest was transacted at the scien- 

 tific session. The papers presented were as 

 follows : 



W. H. Dall : ' Biographical Memoir of Charles 

 Emerson Beecher.' (By title.) 



W. K. Brooks : ' On the Afiinities of the 

 Pelagiae Tunicates.' (Illustrated by lantern 

 slides. ) 



W. K. Brooks and S. Rittenhouse : ' The Life 

 History of Turritopsis.' (Illustrated by lantern 

 slides.) 



W. K. Brooks and R. P. Cowles : ' Phoronis 

 architecta, its anatomy, life history and branching 

 habits.' (By title.) 



John Trowbridge : ' On the Electrical Resist- 

 ance of a Vacuum.' (Illustrated by lantern 

 slides.) 



Franz Boas : ' Psychic Association in Primitive 

 Culture.' 



M. I. PUPIN : ' Time Electrical Impulses.' ( In- 

 troduced by R. S. Woodward. ) 



C. Barus : ' The occurrence of maxima and 

 minima of atmospheric nucleation in approximate 

 coincidence with the winter and summer solstices 

 respectively.' 



C. A. Bauer: 'The System of Magnetic Forces 

 causing the Secular Variation of the Earth's 

 Magnetism.' (Introduced by R. S. Woodward). 



Russell H. Chittenden : ' The Influence of 

 Low Proteid Metabolism on the Formation and 

 Excretion of Uric Acid in Man.' (Illustrated by 

 lantern slides.) 



Edward W. Morley : ' Note on the theory of ex- 

 periments to detect the second power of the aber- 

 ration of light.' 



Edward W. Morley : ' Report of a repetition of 

 the Michelson-Morley experiment on the drift of 

 the earth through the luminiferous ether. 



C. S. Peirce : ' On Topical Geometry.' 



N. Yatsu : ' An Experimental Demonstration of 

 the Formation of Centrosomes de novo.' (Pre- 

 sented by E. B. Wilson.) 



