SCIENCE. 



FKIDAY, APKIL 10, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The nomination of Hon. Norman J. Cole- 

 man of Missouri to be commissioner of agri- 

 culture, if it is to be taken as the expression 

 of a distinct policy on the part of the new 

 administration, shows that no radical change 

 in the status of the department of agriculture 

 is to be looked for. The selection in itself is 

 a commendable one. Mr. Coleman has for 

 years been one of the prominent agriculturists 

 of the Mississippi valley, and, so far as we 

 know, is well fitted by his knowledge of prac- 

 tical agriculture, and his experience of men 

 and affairs, for the position to which he has 

 been nominated. We believe he will compare 

 favorably with previous commissioners. But, 

 whether Mr. Coleman be better or worse than 

 his predecessors, the difference is in degree. 

 We do not understand that he has, or claims 

 to have, any special and intimate acquaintance 

 with the science of agriculture, and we do not 

 anticipate that under him the department will 

 be essentially other than it has been. Its or- 

 ganization as a scientific bureau, with a tech- 

 nical expert at its head, as advocated in a 

 recent number of Science, is apparently as 

 remote as ever. 



The immediate effect of a meeting of the 

 American association for the advancement of 

 science is a large increase in its membership, 

 not only in the place which offers its hospitali- 

 ties any given year, but also in the whole sec- 

 tion of which the place is a centre. Thus the 

 meeting in Philadelphia last year not only in- 

 creased the membership in that city from 56 

 to 150, but spread its influence into the whole 

 surrounding region ; so that, whereas a year 

 ago there were in Pennsylvania only 111 mem- 

 bers, there are now 267, while the member- 

 ship in New Jersey has also increased from 



No. 114. — 1885. 



50 to 73, — a total increase in these two states 

 of nearly the entire advance which was made 

 in the list of membership of the association for 

 the past year. It now numbers 2,347 mem- 

 bers, against 2,011 last year. The membership 

 in Philadelphia is thus at once raised to the 

 first rank, in which only three cities may claim 

 a higher place, — New York, with 171 ; Boston, 

 with 161 ; and Washington, with 155 members. 



How long this membership is retained in 

 such places seems to depend largely upon cir- 

 cumstances. It may be noted, however, that 

 in no place where the meeting has been held 

 since the civil war, until the meeting in Boston 

 (at which the membership was at once dou- 

 bled) , are there more than two cities — Chicago 

 (1868, 30 members) and St. Louis (1878, 52 

 members) — where there are now more than 

 twenty-five members. In four of them, indeed, 

 there are less than ten, of which Dubuque 

 (1872), with its single member, is the most 

 striking example. With its great increase of 

 membership, it is now, more than ever, plain 

 that the association can only meet in cities of 

 considerable size, unless it be in a university 

 town, or in some far-off place where the ex- 

 pense of travel compels a small attendance. 

 The falling-off of membership in the cities 

 which have held the association since it grew 

 to enormous proportions, has not been very 

 large, at least during the past year, and offers 

 great hope that a much more permanent in- 

 terest in the association is secured hy one of 

 these meetings than could be expected. Thus 

 Boston, where the association met in 1880, 

 gained five members last year ; Cincinnati lost 

 nine ; Montreal, four ; while the membership 

 at Minneapolis remained the same. 



We have scanned the list with a view of 

 finding out how largely membership in the 

 association is influenced in smaller places by 



