York and California produce less than I formerly.
The crops following wheat in importance are hay, oats and potatoes; there, is then a drop to tobacco and sugar, and a further drop to barley, flax, rice, rye and hops. The crops for 1909 were valued at $5,700,000,000, in increase over the preceding year of $869,000,000. These values are, however, in large measure due to increased prices, which have affected agricultural products even more than other commodities. The cost of corn, for example, is j more than double what it was ten years ago.
The animal products of the country in 1909 were valued at over $3,000,000,000. The prices here too have increased, but contrary probably to the general belief, much less rapidly than in the case of the cereals. Cattle at the farm have not increased in price in the course of ten years; the wholesale price of beef in New York City has increased 20 per cent, and the retail price 30 per cent.
It will surprise most people to note on the chart that there are in British India more cattle and more dairy cows than in the United States. Texas is followed by Iowa as a cattle-producing state, and New York by the same state in the number of dairy cows. Both the per capita consumption and the exports of meat are decreasing.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We regret to record the deaths of William Harmon Niles, emeritus professor of geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; of Dr. Zdenko Ritter von Skraup, professor of chemistry at Vienna, and of M. Maurice Lévy, professor of mechanics in the College de France.
A bronze statue of Lord Kelvin by Mr, Bruce-Joy is to be erected at Belfast.—A monument in memory of Dr. Niels Finsen, to whom we owe the light treatment of lupus and other diseases, was recently unveiled at Copenhagen.—The original laboratory of Liebig in Giessen is to be purchased and preserved as a memorial to the eminent chemist. An anonymous donor has guaranteed 60,000 Marks for this purpose.
Sir William Ramsay has been elected president of the British Association for the meeting to be held next year at Portsmouth. The meeting of 1912 will be at Dundee. The meeting of 1914 will be held in Australia in the cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sidney and Brisbane. The commonwealth government has voted £10,000 toward the expenses of the meeting, and the several states will make additional contributions.
At Yale University the salaries of professors and assistant professors have been increased by $49,000 from the alumni fund. The salaries of full professors are to be $4,000 to $4,500 and $5,000, based mainly on length of service, but modified somewhat by university responsibility and personal distinction. In the case of assistant professors the maximum salary is increased to $3,000.
