EDWARD LEWIS STURTEVANT. 13 
concerning this breed. This volume exists to-day as the 
only book of importance on Ayrshires outside of the herd 
book, that has been published in the English language. 
With a herd of dairy cows at his disposal, Dr. Sturtevant 
became interested in the physiology of milk and the subject 
of milk secretion. He made active use of the microscope, 
and lectured early in the seventies before agricultural asso- 
ciations on this important topic. Among other things, his 
diagrams illustrating variations in size of fat globules in 
milk of different breeds of cows attracted much attention. 
Dr. Sturtevant began his agricultural work in 1867, and 
among the first things to engage his attention was Indian 
corn, a plant he was constantly studying for 30 years, or 
nearly to the time of his death. He wrote many articles 
cn Indian corn, addressed many agricultural societies 
and carried on extensive observations concerning it, both 
in farm practice and on the experimental field. One of 
the important pieces of corn work which he conducted 
in his early career on the farm, was to improve by selection 
and otherwise, a form of Canadian Yellow Flint which 
afterwards became widely known as Waushakum corn. 
This was bred with such care that 125 bushels of shelled 
corn to the acre have been grown on Waushakum Farm 
from its seed. 
In addition to the work in developing this variety of 
corn, Dr. Sturtevant also improved a variety of muskmelon, 
which he called the New Christiana, a salmon fleshed melon 
of unusual sweetness, quality and amount of flesh. 
Late in the fall of 1875, a lysimeter embracing five thou- 
sandths of an acre in size and 25 inches deep, was put in 
on Waushakum Farm. This was, so far as I am aware, 
the first lysimeter built in America. Its purpose was to 
study the percolation of moisture through a given area of 
soil under agricultural conditions. The apparatus was com- 
pleted Nov. 19, 1875, and up to Jan. 1, 1880, careful 
record was made of all the water of filtration. At the 
