Items of Interest October 9, 1915 Issue

Items of Interest

Connecticut College for Women, at New London, the first institution of its kind in the state, opened this fall with an entering class of more than one hundred students. The buildings stand on a wooded eminence overlooking the Thames river, with a panorama of hill and valley, sea and shore. More than three hundred acres of woodland and field are included in this property, which stretches from one of the highest points in the city down to the bank of the river. The curriculum includes not only the usual academic subjects, but also departments in music, fine and applied arts, and vocational training. Three Hartford women, now members of the board of trustees, started five years ago the movement which has resulted in the opening of this college. Various places in the state offered sites for the institution. A campaign for the raising of $100,000 in New London was conducted with such enthusiasm that $35,000 more than the required amount was secured. Later Morton L. Plant gave $1,000,000 as an endowment fund, the income to be used in defraying the running expenses of the institution. The college plant as thus far constructed consists of a large natural science hall, two dormitories erected with an additional $120,000 given by Mr. Plant and to be known as Plant and Blackstone houses, and a refectory, which is to be called Thames Hall.

Five hundred and sixty-nine acres of land have been added to the state experiment farm operated under the supervision of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It was through the efforts of the Knoxville board of commerce that the movement for the purchase of this additional land was launched and carried through. The purchase price was $140,000. It is the plan of the dean of the college of agriculture to make of Knox county a model in rural school organization and agricultural development. He estimated that from ten thousand to fifteen thousand farmers will visit the experiment station annually from all parts of the state. It is thought that this expansion of the farm plant will enable the college of agriculture to attract, through the future growth of the institution, national live-stock and agricultural meetings that are quite impossible at the present time. A bill is now before the state legislative body which, when passed, will give the university $200,000 additional to spend in the improvement of its buildings during 1915 and 1916.

American and Honduran planters are constructing a railroad through the Mosquitia district of Honduras. This district, extending from Iriona to the boundary of Nicaragua with over eighty miles of seacoast, and extending back into the interior an equal distance, is one of the richest in natural resources of any district in the republic. Mahogany and other hard and cabinet woods are found in the forest, and the virgin land, when cleared only by the axe and the machete and planted to bananas, yields bountifully. The lower lands produce rice in abundance, while rubber grows wild in the forest and under cultivation. There are also thousands of acres of land suitable to cattle raising on a large scale. Many of the creek beds have yielded placer gold. The lack of men is a serious labor problem.

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