Selecting and Electing Directors of Farmer Cooperatives

Excerpts from the report: The board of directors by law has the responsibility of managing the affairs of an association. The manager and other employees carry on their duties in accord with authority to do so only as the board of directors delegates responsibilities to them. As board members are the representatives of the member-owners of an association, the importance of selecting well-qualified individuals to serve on the board of directors cannot be too strongly emphasized. The growth in size of cooperatives, both at local and regional levels, together with the larger number of services performed by many of them has brought about an increased complexity in the job of the director. There has developed a widespread recognition of the need for better qualified directors, more care in their selection and methods of election, and a greater recognition of their duties and responsibilities. This analysis of present methods employed in selecting directors is designed as a basis for offering recommendations for improving procedures

Office of Saline Water Reports

From Introduction: "The study of the conversion of saline water by direct freezing using a secondary refrigerant has been sponsored by the the Office of Saline Water at Cornell University since the beginning of 1958. This report first considers the energy relationships which can be the basis for much controversy regarding the freezing process.

Decreased rainfall interception balances increased transpiration in exotic ponderosa pine plantations compared with native cypress stands in Patagonia, Argentina

Exotic ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Doug. ex. Laws) is being planted for timber production in the natural distribution area of cordilleran cypress [Austrocedrus chilensis (D. Don) Pic. Serm. et Bizzarri] in the forest-steppe ecotone at the base of the Andes Mountains in northwest Patagonia. Our previous studies showed that transpiration of ponderosa pine plantations was between 33% and 64% greater than that of cordilleran cypress under similar growing conditions. Although transpiration is typically the largest term in evapotranspiration (ET) in closed-canopy forests, evaporative losses of rainfall intercepted by the canopy (IL) can also account for a large proportion of ET in forest ecosystems. The objective of this case study was to assess differences in IL between exotic ponderosa pine plantations and cordilleran cypress stands, as well as the combined effect of IL and transpiration. Net and gross precipitation were measured using arrays of manual rain gauges and tipping buckets with troughs in four forest stands of ponderosa pine and cordilleran cypress at two densities each. Additionally, water storage capacity of cut branches was measured in the laboratory. Annual estimates of IL were calculated using the Gash model (Gash, 1979) for two consecutive years with markedly different spring and summer precipitation. In cordilleran cypress stands, IL ranged from 35% to 44% of gross precipitation, whereas IL ranged from 17% to 22% of gross precipitation in pine plantations. Total annual IL fully offset the differences of spring and summer transpiration between ponderosa pine plantations and cordilleran cypress stands of similar densities