ITEMS OF INTEREST August 29, 1908 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, recently addressing the International Typographical Union Convention, warned his hearers that the future of the United States depends upon the conservation of its resources. "We have," he said, "the most wonderful system of rivers to be found in any civilized country, and the least used. There is less transportation on our rivers, taken altogether, now than there was fifty years ago, and in spite of the vast sums spent upon them, they are less navigable now than they were then. We have allowed them to be clogged with the soil washed from our fields and mountainsides, and have wasted their value for navigation. The fertile soil which has clogged our rivers has been washed from our fields, and every one of the hundreds of millions of tons so lost every year helps to make the farmer poorer and to reduce the product of our farms."

The contest for the Scientific American trophy for machines heavier than air, for 1908, will take place in New York City Sept. 7, provided that at least three entries are made on or before Sept. 1. The contest will be over a distance of not less than twenty-five kilometers, including a return to the point of starting and a descent or alighting at a point not more than three hundred meters from the point at which the machine rose from the ground. The machine which covers the greatest distance and fulfils the minimum requirements stated above, and with the best display of stability and ease of control, is to be declared the winner, but the committee in making its decision will take into consideration the questions of safety and speed attained.

One of the biggest land deals of recent years in Texas has been effected, whereby a company of Japanese, headed by Omar Takayah, bought ninety-nine thousand acres of land in Hidalgo, Nueces, Cameron, and San Patricio counties for the colonization of Japanese. The consideration is not given, but is said to be about $500,000. Takayah says a small army of his countrymen are waiting in Japan to come here and settle on these lands, and the syndicate he represents is arranging to send our about one thousand rice growers early this winter.

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