576 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion. The employees are all thoroughbred experts, graduates of uni- 

 versities, colleges or technical schools. A more devoted set of men 

 cannot be found in the whole country. Their influence is raising the 

 standard of farming in almost every State. One of the great railway 

 promoters in the Northwest long since realized the importance of this 

 matter, and in order to promote the interests of his railroad he made 

 arrangements with every town throughout the great State near the line 

 to send two men every year to the capital, where the Agricultural 

 College and Experiment Station were situated. He gave them a free 

 pass, liberty to remain four days, the State giving them a banquet — 

 the only condition being that one day out of the four should be devoted 

 to the study of the work of the Agricultural Experiment Station; and 

 for a number of years one thousand (1,000) to fifteeen hundred 

 (1,500) men enjoyed this benefit every year. 



Each Experiment Station devotes itself to the special conditions of 

 the State in which it is placed. For instance, in Minnesota the whole 

 standard of wheat cultivation and of dairy product has been raised 

 to a very high point. In Michigan the market value of a large prod- 

 vict of butter has been raised to a more profitable point by improve- 

 ment in stock, in the establishment of creameries, and in other ways. 

 The application of the bacterium of June butter in the creameries has 

 become common. 



Professor Kohn, who made this discovery at the Columbian Ex- 

 hibition in Chicago, in 1893, has established a bacterium factory 

 which, at the last advices known to me, supplied one hundred and fifty 

 (150) creameries with the ferment. 



In Kansas attention has been given to the improvement in the 

 quality of maize or Indian corn. The ordinary maize is deficient in 

 the nitrogen or protein elements as compared to the starch and fats. 

 Varieties have been bred, bringing maize even with wheat in the 

 protein element, which may end in making maize as complete a food 

 as either wheat or oatmeal. 



In the South the greatest attention is given to renovating plants 

 of the leguminous type — beans, peas, alfalfa and others. The slave- 

 stricken lands are being regenerated, and gradually but slowly stock 

 suited to the climate and conditions of the Atlantic cotton States is 

 being introduced. 



Of course all these changes imply the use of fertilizers in larger 

 and larger measure. That need is being met. The vast deposits of 

 phosphatic material in Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas, 

 coupled with the use of the ground slag from basic steel furnaces, give 

 an assurance of an abundant supply of that necessary element for all 

 time to come. 



The discovery of the function of the bacteria attached to the stalks 



