The Department of Agriculture and some of the states have already developed work in this field and it will be the object of the Rural Organization Service, operating through the department, to secure the co-operation of all these agencies. The Department of Agriculture is now charged specifically with the problem of studying the marketing of farm produce. Congress at its last session appropriated $50,000 to enable the secretary of agriculture “to acquire and to diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with the marketing and distributing of farm products.” Marketing, however, is only one aspect of the problem of rural organization. The General Education Board, which for several years has co-operated with the Department of Agriculture in the support of its farm demonstration work, has expressed a willingness to extend its co-operation with the department in this problem of Rural Organization Service. This offer of further co-operation has been accepted. The secretary of agriculture has sought and secured the services of Dr. T. N. Carver, professor of economics in Harvard University, as director of this work, and the president of Harvard University has granted Dr. Carver indefinite leave of absence. It is expected that the work of investigation, experiment and demonstration now conducted by the Department of Agriculture and by many of the state colleges and experiment stations will fit into the new scheme. The Rural Organization Service plans to co-ordinate and crystalize these results and apply them in community effort for the advancement of agriculture. CONFERENCE OF NEGRO INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS A conference on Rural Industrial Schools for Colored People in the South was held in New York April 17-18. The conference was called by six colored principals: Leslie Pinckney Hill, of Manassas, Va.; William E. Benson, of Kowaliga, Ala.; W. J. Edwards, of Snow Hill, Ala.; W. A. Hunt, of Fort Valley. Ga.; W. D. Holtzclaw, of Utica, Miss., and Emma Wilson of Mayesville, S. C. Between one and two hundred people attended the various sessions, and nearly every southern state was represented. There are about 200 schools for Negroes in the South which are supported by private philanthropy. Some of these schools are supported by such bodies as the American Missionary Association but a larger number have been organized by the initiative of their principals and have no backing save that of their individual boards. Mr. Hill, in his opening address, pleaded for co-operation among the principals and the boards of Negro schools. Under the present system he said each school works for itself, determines its own educational standard, buys its supplies and unaided raises its money. He recommended co-operation in the raising of funds, in the standardizing of studies, in the standardizing of accounts and in the buying of supplies. These four suggestions were the central themes of the conference.