Items of Interest November 21, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

Thirty-six governors, former governors, and governors-elect, attended the opening at Madison, Wis., on the 10th inst., of the seventh annual governors' conference, which for five days considered means of improving conditions within and simplifying relations between states. Conservation of natural resources was the dominating subject, considered with special reference to state control. Uniformity of state laws in connection with extradition, with the fixing of regulations to be met by alien corporations doing business in a state, were among the topics for discussion. The question of how, by uniform laws, to compel corporations to comply with child labor laws and health and sanitation provisions without discouraging business, is, according to the secretary of the conference, one of the most important problems ever brought before the governors.

The important farm crops of the United States this year are worth $5,068,742,000, or $104,000,000 more than the value of the same crops last year, notwithstanding a loss of $418,000,000 sustained by cotton planters on lint alone as a result of the European war. Preliminary estimates of the important farm crops just announced by the department of agriculture, and statistics of the average prices paid to producers on Nov. 1, indicate that this year's wheat and corn crops are the most valuable ever grown in the United States, that the wheat and apple crops are record harvests, and that the potato crop is the second largest ever raised. The huge wheat crop and the increased price of that cereal, the large corn and apple crops, and the increased price of oats, barley, and rye, more than offset the big loss in the value of the cotton crop resulting from the war.

Actual difference in time between Washington and Paris has just been established, by the recent series of exchanges of wireless telegraph signals between the big naval wireless station at Arlington and the French government station on Eiffel tower, after experiments and calculations that required months of labor by both America and France. Signals received at each station were recorded on specially designed instruments, and to detect errors due to mechanical imperfections, the observers exchanged instruments and repeated their tests. It is approximately four thousand miles from Washington to Paris, and the greatest distance over which previous tests of a like nature had been made was six hundred miles.

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