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Thus far it has been difficult to throw any light upon cell-absorption and selection in many complex natural relationships by calling In the assistance of the dissociation theory and the ionic relationships of the salts in the soil. The external relationships of nutrient salts, or the relative abundance of these in substrata supporting vegetation, constitutes a problem with which the physiologist must be concerned. It is necessary only to glance at the results of work done by various experiment stations in this country to be convinced of the great physiological importance which may be attached to such studies. If, as has been well demonstrated, the germ of ty phoid fever is transmitted principally in water, there seems no reason to doubt the ability of health officers, collaborating with broad-minded municipal authority and high-class engineering skill, to perfect means whereby this deadly germ shall be practically elimin ated from our water supply. Consumption may be checked by the establishment of camps of detention where the unfortunate victims of this terrible disease may receive not only the highest degree of proficiency In medical treatment, but also be so segregated from the non-infected portions of the community as to render the spread of the disease difficult. In point of quantity and value corn is the leading cereal crop of the United States. Its annual farm value in later years has nearly equaled and sometimes exceeded 1,000,000,000. While less subject to insect damage than wheat, the next most important cereal, the corn product would be considerably greater were it not for important insect pests. The work of several of these Is obscure, and many farmers are entirely ignor ant of the existence even of some of the worst enemies of this crop. In this last category falls the work of the corn root worm {Diahrotica longicornis), which ordi narily passes unnoticed, or at least is often misunder stood. The larva of this insect feeds on the roots of young corn, and in regions of bad attack may cause an almost entire loss of the stand. The corn root worm, together with one or two allied species working in sub stantially the same way, causes an annual loss of at least 2 per cent of the crop, or some 20,000,000. Acccording to the annual report of the Royal Brit ish Observatory at Greenwich during the year ending May 10, 1905, 15,842 observations of transits were made of the sun, moon, planets, and fundamental stars. Great progress has also been made in the ob servation of the reference stars connected with the Greenwich section of the astrographic catalogue. This section extends from 65 deg. north declination to the North Pole, and in carrying out the measurement of the photographic plates, the accurate positions of 10,-000 reference stars are desired. Of each of these stars five observations are desired, making 50,000 observations in all, and of this number 9,500 have been obtained during the past year. There now remain only five stars requiring three observations each, and IjBOO requiring one observation each, to complete the work; 603 double stars have been measured, 143 of these having their components less than one second of arc apart. A large number of photographs of Nep tune and its satellite and 100 photographs of comets have been obtained during the year. The measure ment of the catalogue plates for the Greenwich sec tion of the International Astrographic Survey, has been completed. The losses occasioned by insects to farm products exhibit a wide range in different years, due, as a rule, to favorable or unfavorable climatic conditions, and also to the abundance, from time to time, of natural enemies. The result is more or less periodicity in the occurrence of bad insect years. In other words, periods of unusual abundance of particular insect pests are, as a rule, followed by a number of years of comparative scarcity. Furthermore, seasons which may be favorable to one insect may prove unfavorable to others, hence there may be not only periodicity in the occurrence of the same insect, but more or less of a, rotation of the different insect pests of particular crops.
