Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/435

Rh booklet of practical directions for acquiring plumpness of form, strength of limb, and beauty of complexion, with rules for diet and bathing, and a series of improved physical exercises, based on the text of William Milo, of London. It gives much sound and interesting hygienic lore for ten cents.

The President's Annual Report of Columbia College for 1891 presents a record of a very full year of changes and progress incident to a lively growth. The College of Physicians and Surgeons, which has been affiliated since 1860, is now fully consolidated as a part of the institution. An important addition to the faculty is the institution of the Da Costa Professorship of Biology, with Prof. H. F. Osborn as its incumbent, and Dr. Bashford Dean as instructor. Prof. Osborn has been appointed Curator of Mammalian Paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History, and the first important step has been taken toward co-operation of that institution and the college. Another movement in the direction of co-operation has been made in the arrangement with the Union Theological Seminary for interchange of privileges. The Law School has been reorganized, with a new course of three years, and a new chair of International Law and Diplomacy. The Department of English has also been reorganized, and a Department of Literature created, with Mr. George E. Woodberry as professor. The faculty of philosophy, philology, and letters has been further strengthened by the creation of the chair of Experimental Psychology, with Prof. J. McK. Cattell as professor. Other changes, rather incidental than fundamental, are noticed in the report.

The Ninth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station represents that a favorable season has aided materially in a successful termination of a variety of field experiments as well as in a satisfactory general management of the farm work. The introduction of a vegetation-house for the purpose of studying, under well-defined circumstances, the influence of special articles of plant-food on the growth and character of plants and other intricate questions of vegetable physiology, is mentioned as an important addition to the resources of the institution. The report embodies detailed accounts of feeding experiments, field experiments and observations in vegetable physiology and pathology, special work in the chemical laboratory, and meteorological observations.

The work of the Connecticut Experiment Station, as presented in its report, has included analyses of commercial fertilizers; testing samples of butter, oleomargarine, molasses, and vinegar; analyses of feeding stuffs; various tests and analyses of milk, cream, etc.; experiments on the continuous growth of Indian corn on the same land; tests of the relative yield, in the course of years, of potatoes from tubers of different sizes; studies of the albuminoids or proteids of the seeds of the oat, flax, and cotton; and experiments, chemical and other, on the curing of tobacco.

The Indiana Experiment Station has suffered some changes in the personality of its staff, but its efficiency has not been impaired thereby. A study has been made for several years bearing upon the suitability of Indiana as a sugar-beet producing State, with encouraging results under certain conditions and in certain parts of the State. Investigations are in progress on the application of nitrogenous fertilizers to wheat. The plant diseases of grain, smut, a bacterial affection of the sugarbeet, and maladies of carnations have been studied. The lumpy jaw of cattle is under investigation. The feeding experiments relate to the influence of the physical condition of the rough food on meat production in steers; comparative rations of whole and skim milk for calves; different forms of feeding corn, and rations designed for producing lean or fat meat in pigs.

The Nebraska experiment station is gradually becoming recognized as an important factor in the agriculture of the State. The number of farmers who turn to the office for information is rapidly increasing; and the demand for the bulletins, which go regularly into the hands of more than five thousand actual farmers, is very great. The bright promise of the beet-sugar industry has led to giving it prominence in the shaping of investigations and in the report. Besides accounts of field experiments and meteorological observations, the report also contains a catalogue of the native trees and shrubs of Nebraska and "farm-notes" on many subjects.

The report of S. A. Forbes, State