245 



Professor Charles E. Besgey discussed the preparation of botanical 

 teachers; Professor O. Caldwell, the product of our botanical 

 teaching; Professor F. E. Clements, methods of botanical teach- 

 ing; discussion by Professor John M. Coulter and Frederick C. 

 Newcombe followed. Professor Bessey regretted the passing 

 of the old type of field botany, and that nothing in the present 

 courses really takes its place; he also notes the heavier require- 

 ments of botanists for the college degrees in botany, when com- 

 pared with the demands in other sciences and suggests that we 

 are "putting too high a value on what we are putting into our 

 students, and neglecting the man himself." Professor Caldwell 

 (these abstracts are not complete in any sense) felt that we "need 

 more students who early in life have begun to think botany and 

 to think in the scientific method." Professor Clements noted 

 the "failure of botany to provide a definite avenue to a position 

 such as is offered by courses in law, medicine, engineering," etc.; 

 he also regretted the specialized tendency that permeates nearly 

 all elementary botanical teaching, feeling that even the micro- 

 scope is "far too special an instrument for the beginner." 



The English government has voted $250,000 for agricultural 

 research, including plant and animal physiology, pathology, and 

 breeding, and agricultural zoology, and fruit breeding. This 

 appropriation is accompanied by a yearly sum of $15,000 for 

 special investigation. The scheme includes grants to various 

 educational institutions (a separate subject to be treated by each 

 institution receiving aid) for investigation and scientific advice 

 to farmers. 



Professor Forrest Shreve has experimented with the giant 

 cactus {Carnegiea gigantea) working out the influence of low tem- 

 peratures on its distribution. The paper includes curves showing 

 the daily rise of internal temperature in the giant cactus on a cold 

 day. 



The chief factors limiting the northward range of sub-tropical 

 species are: "the greatest number of consecutive hours during 

 which the temperature falls below freezing; the total number of 



