The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1905 no. 153

              NUMBER  153                                     ATLANTA, GEORGIA                                     MARCH,  1905 For statement of the work of Atlanta University see last page. IN MEMORY OP MRS. CHENEY Two meetings were held in Boston last month to honor the memory of our friend and benefactor, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, one of them by the New England Woman's Club, of which she was long a member and officer, and the other by the New Era Club, composed mainly of colored women, some of whom were intimately associated with Mrs. Cheney in philanthropic work. At the former meeting, presided over by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, a number of her friends spoke, one after another, of the various phases of Mrs. Cheney's life work. Her interest in the education of the Negro was set forth very fittingly by Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, who mentioned Mrs. Cheney's special interest in the work of Atlanta University, and also by President Bumstead. We understand that these addresses are all to be printed by the Club. At the meeting of the New Era Club, the tributes were paid by representatives of the various Southern schools which were aided by Mrs. Cheney during her lifetime and were remembered in her will. Our representative at this meeting was Mr. George G. Bradford, a former member of our board of trustees, who spoke in part as follows: It is fitting that on this occasion the Atlanta University should pay its grateful tribute to the memory of the brave souled, large minded woman who has so recently passed from our midst. For in the time of its great need, in the most critical period of its history when, suddenly deprived without notice of its chief source of income, it stood without endowment, almost without visible means of support, facing the future with only heroic devotion to a great principle to sustain it, she came bravely and efficiently to its support. She gave of her money," of her time, of her great influence. She rallied her friends to its support. By tongue and pen, she also rallied to it the enlightened public opinion of the community, and in dying she left it a generous bequest. But, most priceless service of all, she gave to the University enlightened understanding and sympathetic insight into its principles and purposes, and to her friend, the heroic and devoted president, courage and faith. Courage during those dark days when seeming defeat impended, when each year saw the Uni- versity sinking further and further into debt, unable to win from an indifferent public sufficient support for the work. Now that those darkest days are past and each year the institution closes its account with a small balance on the right side and some addition to its small endowment, we can look back with grateful appreciation to the unfaltering courage and fortitude with which she championed the losing cause, helping the president by her cheer, her sympathy and steadfast counsels to turn seeming defeat into victory. A FARMERS' CONFERENCE A recent attendance at the sixth annual farmers' conference at the Georgia State Industrial College near Savannah was of peculiar interest to the writer of this article from the fact that the president of the college, R. R. Wright, A. M., LL. D., recited to him in Latin at Atlanta  University thirty-five years ago. The campus of the college is beautiful for situation, being a level tract of some thirty acres bordering upon a marsh that at high tide is covered with salt water which stretches away in the distance, and well shaded with fine old trees from which swings in the breeze a profusion of grey green mosses. On the campus are two fine old ante-bellum "big houses" whose former occupants have given place to the sons of those who used to lodge only in the "quarters," Meldrim Hall, named in honor of Colonel Meldrim of Savannah, chairman of the State Committee that directs the affairs of the Institution, containing recitation rooms on the first floor and on the second the commodious hall in which the sessions of the conference were held ; a boys' dormitory of pleasing architectural appearance and of considerable size; a shop in which various industries, such as carpentering, tinning, painting and shoe-making are taught; a farm house and several comely residences for the instructors, all forming an imposing group of buildings and furnishing good accommodations for a small institution of this character. Six interesting and instructive sessions were held and were attended by over eighty tillers of the soil and a large number of students and friends. President Wright presided with his usual dignity, tact and alertness and kept the wheels running smoothly. Several of the farmers made addresses and the other speakers were Professor Carver of Tuskegee Institute, Professor Chase of Atlanta University, Mrs. Frances Barnum, S. P. Lloyd, M. D., J. W. Williams, M. D., and Hon. P. W. Meldrim of Savannah, Rev. Silas X. Floyd, D. D., of Augusta, Dr. W. A. Orton, Pathologist U. S. Agricultural Department, Washington, D. C, and Hon. J. Pope Brown of Hawkinsville. Dr. Orton and Professor Carver made many suggestions, emphasizing rotation in crops, raising less cotton and more food products, deep plowing, turning under stalks, etc., instead of burning them, selecting the best seed for the crop while standing in the field, choosing seed cotton from stalks of good height and having a large number of bolls and branches near together, fertilizing judiciously and intelligently, plowing in leguminous plants to enrich the land, inoculating the soil, etc. Dr. Orton in particular deplored the advice that is being given in many of the papers against the extensive use of fertilizers, and said that at the U. S. experiment station at Blackshear, Ga., of which he has been in charge for several years, an acre of land was lightly fertilized and produced only 249 pounds of cotton, while the next acre treated in exactly the same way except that it was highly fertilized yielded 500 pounds. Inasmuch as the prevalence and fatality of consumption and pneumonia among Negroes is great, the addresses of Dr. Lloyd upon the former and of Dr. Williams upon the latter were timely and cannot fail to incite these farmers and the other listeners to greater care in their food, habits and general mode of living. Rev. Dr. Floyd, owing to the failure of another speaker, had an hour and a half at his disposal, and in his Sam Jones style held the closest attention of his audience while he told them how farmers could improve their homes by making them roomy, beautiful, healthful and pure. The farmers who spoke dwelt upon their struggles and successes, some of them saying that they owned from one hundred to four hundred acres of land Continued on page 4.