the heels of statements that policemen in American cities are unintelligent, is the result of an investigation made by Maud A. Merrill, of the department of psychology of Stanford University.

The investigation was designed to find out whether men of comparatively high intelligence and ability make good policemen and are satisfied with the work, Miss Merrill reports in the number of The Journal of Personnel Research to be issued in April.

For two years, each applicant for the Palo Alto force has been given the Alpha intelligence test used to grade the mentality of United States soldiers during the war. Out of 113 applicants, 30 were chosen on the basis of their intelligence together with the impression they made on the examiners.

"The average Alpha intelligence score of men who have remained on the Palo Alto police force for two years is 143.5, a score higher than the average for army officers and higher than that reported as the freshman average at many colleges."

"The median score of men who have been discharged for inefficiency or for conduct unbecoming an officer is 137. Men who left voluntarily for better jobs have a median score of 171.5. One of these men left the police force to go into grand opera.' The median Alpha score made by white drafted soldiers was about 60.

Previous investigations have indicated that bright, capable young men do not remain in the police service as a career, the average mentality of patrolmen being higher in some cities than the mentality of sergeants and lieutenants.

Salaries in Palo Alto are not larger than in other towns. Miss Merrill's explanation as to why policemen of intelligence seem content to enter the force and stay there is that the force is directed by a chief who is progressive and capable and that possibly perhaps the organization itself under capable leadership offers an incentive to capable, intelligent men in police work.

THE ELECTRIC MOULDING OF RUBBER INNER tubes, water bags and other articles of pure rubber, stronger and more durable than rubber obtained by any other process, are now being made by electric moulding, essentially the same process that is used in electroplating silverware and in making cuts for newspaper pictures, according to the Engineering Research Foundation. The process was worked out by two groups of research workers, one in America and one in Hungary, neither of whom knew that the other was engaged in the problem. The American workers were S. E. Sheppard and L. W. Eberlin, of the Eastman Kodak Company, and the Hungarian group was led by Paul Klein and A. Szegvari.

Both groups were practically interested in improvement of the quality of rubber goods, according to a statement made by an officer of the Engineering Research Foundation. They knew that when the solid dried crude rubber is worked upon a mixing mill in the rubber factory, the rubber substance was made softer and weaker. They knew that the less rubber was heated or worked, the bet

ter was its quality. They also knew that research of chemists in recent years had shown how vulcanization may be carried on at lower temperatures than formerly and the necessary sulphur combined with rubber with minimum of loss of quality. Certain substances known as accelerators possess the property of permitting vulcanization to be accomplished at relatively low temperatures. However, if these accelerators were incorporated on the usual mixing mill, the temperature would be sufficiently high to cause vulcanization during mixing and spoil the goods.

These men conceived the plan of so depositing rubber on forms, from latex, that the rubber particle itself was not altered, and made the astonishing discovery that electro-deposited rubber had the highest quality ever observed. There were many problems to be solved before this was made practical. It was necessary to incorporate other substances to be deposited simultaneously, such as sulphur, zinc oxide and carbon black. These latter two substances are necessary in rubber goods to give toughness. A long investigation was carried out to find means to disperse them in water, mixed with the latex particles, without coagulating the latex. A noteworthy achievement has been the discovery of means by which these rubber layers may be free from bubbles, for when an electric current is passed through a solution, bubbles of gas are formed on anode and cathode. So they hit upon the scheme of surrounding the anode with a porous clay diaphragm. The anode is therefore immersed in electrolyte inside a porous clay cell or dish and the rubber particles, together with those of zinc oxide, sulphur, etc., are deposited upon this porous so-called anode diaphragm. Thus the rubber as it collects forms a continuous homogenous, tough covering of uniform thickness. Any thickness up to an inch or more is practicable. Rubber thus formed is stronger than rubber prepared by the old methods, and is free from gas or air holes.

Industrial development is already well advanced. Continuous, automatic production of certain kinds of articles is feasible. Manufacture of inner tubes for automobile tires is the most important application, if quantity be the criterion. bands, Bathing caps, stationers' plastic tobacco pouches and hot-water bottles are other examples. Insulation for wires and other things electrical is another application. No high temperatures are used. For impregnating textiles the rubber can be more intimately applied to the fibers.

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH

THE benefits derived by agriculture from the applications of science were outlined by Secretary of Agriculture W. M. Jardine in an address, on March 29, before the American Institute of Chemists meeting in New Haven.

Science began its work for modern agriculture over a century ago, Secretary Jardine stated, with the classical work of Boussingault, de Saussure and Liebig on fertilizers, a field in which research still continues on an ever-increasing scale. The Babcock test for the butterfat content of milk, Sabatier's process for hydrogenating

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vegetable fats, Biot's influence on the increase of sugar in beets, and the work of Osborn and Mendel, of Yale, in accurately measuring the food requirements of cattle, were among the special accomplishments cited by the speaker.

In conclusion, Dr. Jardine made a plea for greater attention to, and increased support for, fundamental research in pure science. He said in part:

"American science, I am convinced, needs to concern itself more with fundamental research than it has done heretofore. No country in the world has made such progress in applied science, but our record in pure science is not so flattering. Since 1900, when the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine were inaugurated, 76 awards have been made. Of these, 24 went to Germany, 11 to England, 10 to France, 6 to the Netherlands, 5 to Sweden, 4 to the United States, 3 to Denmark, 3 to Switzerland, 2 each to Austria, Canada, Italy and Russia, and 1 each to Belgium and Spain. On the basis of population, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland received one to every million inhabitants; Germany one to every two and one half million; Austria one to every three million; England one to every three and a quarter million; France one to every four million; the United States, one to every twenty-nine million. This is the situation despite the fact that we have vastly more students in colleges and universities in proportion to the population than has any other country in the world. The difficulty seems to me twofold: We are not laying enough emphasis on pure science in proportion to our emphasis on the applications of science; and we are not stimulating and training an adequate personnel in scientific research.''

ITEMS

VOLCANIC activity of more than unusual intensity has been noted recently by Dr. T. A. Jaggar, government volcanologist, at Halemaumau pit, the liveliest spot in the crater of Kilauea, the world's largest living volcano. "There was a fresh reddening of the whole northwest wall of the pit where a large shell of the wall had fallen," according to Dr. Jaggar. "The débris slopes below were seen to be covered with reddish rocks and dust, and the dusting of the bottom of the pit extended clear across to the south taluses. Most of this had been accompanied by small slides from the decomposed rock of the northwest wall. But there had been at least one big avalanche, which had carried away the greater part of a pronounced bench at the west end of the big intrusive sill which forms the lower part of the northeastern wall. The dusting of the bottom of the pit was further evidence of a big avalanche, and the middle talus of the northeast wall showed more fresh débris. The yellowing of the southern solfataras continued to be conspicuous.

STUDYING the light given off by ash of tumors burned in an arc light is the latest method of attacking the cancer problem, one which has been applied at the Hahnemann Medical College by a trio of biologists and a physicist, Donald C. A. Butts, Thomas E. Huff and Frederick

THE remains of a complete Indian village perhaps a thousand years old have just recently been uncovered near Alamo, Contra Costa County, California, by Glenn Fisher and Raymond Kraft, of Concord, Calif. The discovery was made on the rim of Mt. Diablo, where Bret Harte first taught school and where he was inspired to write his fascinating tale, "The Legend of Monte Diablo."' A quantity of skeletal material, ornaments, weapons, utensils, shell, ashes, firestones and bone material have already been removed from the ruins. Further excavations, however, are now being held up pending legal action by the Alamo Chamber of Commerce, who are opposed to the transfer of these relics to a museum. "An Indian burial ground is its own best museum, according to Lyman K. Stoddard, president of the Alamo Chamber of Commerce, who further states that his community has one of the few intact Indian buried villages and they are not going to let souvenir hunters carry off valuable historical material.''

FURTHER evidence that plants must have something in addition to their regular diet of the seven chemical elements classically supposed to be all-sufficient for the support of plant life is produced in the forthcoming issue of The Botanical Gazette by Dr. A. R. C. Haas and Dr. H. S. Reed, of the Citrus Experiment Station at Riverside, Calif. The two experimenters were growing young orange trees in pots, watering them with a solution supposed to contain everything a reasonable young plant might require, when they found their specimens getting decidedly sick. The leaves curled and became discolored, and in general the seedlings looked very much distressed. A very minute addition of a number of elements which have always been considered useless to plants, including aluminum, titanium, bromine, strontium, lithium and boron, was found to be the proper medicine to restore the ailing trees to full health.

SALTING asparagus beds as a part of the regular fertilizer program, long a traditional practice among gardeners, has received the sanction of science, according to a report by Dr. William Rudolfs, of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, which will be published in the forthcoming issue of The Botanical Gazette. One hundred and fifty pounds of salt per acre is not enough, Dr. Rudolfs's experiments disclosed, for plants on plots treated with this amount showed no increase in numbers of stalks over plants on unsalted plots. But doubling the amount of salt resulted in an increase in average number of stalks per plant from six to nearly seven; and a salt dose of 500 pounds per acre brought the yield per plant up to about seven and one half stalks.

VOL. LXV

APRIL 8, 1927

No. 1684

AGRICULTURE AND MODERN

SCIENCE1

I FEEL a special sense of appropriateness in speaking on such a subject as "Agriculture and Modern Science" at Yale University. Much work in agricultural science has been carried on in Connecticut from pioneer days down to the present, largely under the leadership of Yale professors and investigators.

The earliest scientific paper on agriculture by a resident of the English colonies was that of John Winthrop, Jr., first governor of Connecticut, on the "Description, Culture and Use of Maize," read before the Royal Society in 1663. The Rev. Jared Eliot, of Killingworth, Connecticut, in the next century, is believed to have been the first American to publish a book on agriculture. Eliot, by the way, was a chemist. In 1764 the London Society for the Encouragement of Arts awarded him a gold medal for his process of making iron and steel from black magnetic sand.

Modern scientific study of agriculture in America may be said to have begun with John P. Norton, who undertook his duties as first professor of agricultural chemistry at Yale in 1847. Professor Norton, after making a promising beginning, died at the early age of thirty. His plans were carried to fruition by his pupil, Samuel W. Johnson, who held the professorship of agricultural chemistry at Yale for forty years, from 1856 to 1896. Professor Johnson is recognized as the father of agricultural research in the United States. The work which he did in the fifties as chemist of the State Agricultural Society in the analysis of fertilizers "for the information and protection of farmers" and the exposure of frauds attracted wide attention. As early as 1854 he advocated the establishment in this country of agricultural experiment stations and wrote: "What agriculture most needs is the establishment of its doctrines. . . . If agriculturists would know, they must inquire. The knowledge they need belongs not to revelation but to science, and it must be sought as the philosopher seeks other scientific truth."

Due largely to Professor Johnson's efforts the agricultural experiment station idea first took shape in the Connecticut station, which began its career at

1 Address of the secretary of agriculture, at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., March 28, 1927, at 8:15 P. M., under the auspices of the American Institute of Chemists.

Wesleyan University, at Middletown, in 1875. Professor W. O. Atwater, a former student of Johnson's, was made director. Professor Atwater laid the foundation of American scientific studies in human and animal nutrition. The station was incorporated as a separate institution in 1877 and moved to New Haven. Professor Johnson became director, and offices and laboratory were supplied by the Sheffield Scientific School.

Professor Johnson's contributions to agricultural science were many and valuable. "How Crops grow" and "How Crops feed" are agricultural classics. His influence in bringing science to bear on all the varied phases of agriculture was far-reaching.

The success of the Connecticut Experiment Station led other states to follow. Dr. Johnson was active in developing a wider interest.

Another movement which had an important bearing on the development of agricultural research was the establishment of the bureau, now the Department of Agriculture, and the land grant college system by congressional acts in 1862.

The Department of Agriculture from the beginning was planned to be a national research agency. It has been gradually developed along these lines until now it is the most extensive research agency of the kind in the world, expending for fundamental research bearing on agriculture in its larger aspects more than ten million dollars a year and employing more than a thousand trained investigators and in addition a corps of more than four thousand who assist in the work directly or indirectly.

In the development of the land grant colleges the needs for research as well as education were evident from the first. Research data on which to build a more scientific agricultural education were largely lacking. The earlier years of the colleges were therefore not impressive from the standpoint of accomplishment.

In 1887, largely through the efforts of the colleges, the Hatch act was passed. This recognized the joint responsibility of the federal and state governments for promoting agricultural research and provided $15,000 a year to each state for that purpose. This was later increased under the Adams act to $30,000, and recently under the Purnell act to a final total of $90,000 a year to each state. On the average, not counting buildings, land and overhead of that kind, the states provide in addition two or three times as much more.

The general supervision of the work on the part of the federal government devolves upon the Department of Agriculture through a special Office of Experiment Stations, provided by law for that purpose.

The closest cooperation has developed in practically every phase of the work.

The three acts mentioned have somewhat different objectives. The first, the Hatch act, was general in its terms. The Adams act was designed to develop more fundamental research. The Purnell act broadened the field to include economic, sociological and home economic studies. In the earlier years problems of production, control of disease and insect pests, introduction and development of improved varieties of crops and animals, studies of fertilizers and soil fertility, feeding and breeding of livestock were paramount objectives. To-day these are not less important, but problems of marketing, finance, transportation and other economic and social aspects of agriculture are dominant and require the same careful study and analysis that have been given to the production aspects.

There is also a difference in point of view between the earlier and the later work in agricultural research. In the early stages, agricultural science borrowed heavily from general science, the discoveries in which it endeavored mainly to apply to agricultural problems. Latterly, institutions for agricultural research have themselves become contributors to scientific discovery to a constantly increasing extent.

Examples of agricultural progress through research may be found in practically every science and every group of sciences.

In chemistry the classic example is the early work on fertilizers. The foundations of this branch of agricultural science were laid by such chemists as de Saussure (whose "Chemical Researches upon Vegetation" was published in 1804), Boussingault, who introduced exact field experiments with fertilizers in 1834, and especially Liebig, whose epoch-making book, "Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology," was published in 1840. Liebig's book was the foundation of modern scientific agriculture. His work inspired J. B. Lawes in England, who first began the manufacture of calcium superphosphate as a fertilizer and founded the first agricultural experiment station at Rothamsted.

One of the most brilliant examples of the benefits which have been conferred by chemistry upon agriculture is the Babcock test for determining the butterfat content of milk. It won grand prizes at both the Paris and St. Louis Expositions. Babcock's invention, from the effect which it had in improving dairy herds, in securing the payment for milk and cream upon a fat percentage basis, in controlling the processes of manufacturing dairy products, and in regulating the purity of municipal milk supplies, has been of inestimable value to the American people,