36 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



This is a very brief and meager history of the legal status of the 

 work in experimentation carried on at the college before the passage 

 of the United States act of 1887. This act, usually spoken of as the 

 Hatch act. grants annually |15,000 from government funds to the ex- 

 periment station in each state. In Michigan, by legislative enactment, 

 the state experiment station is a department of the State Agricultural 

 College. 



The national congress at its last session granted additional aid to 

 the state experiment stations. The Adams act gives each station |,5,000 

 for the year 1906, with an increase of |2,000 each 3-ear for five years. 

 At the end of that time, and thereafter, the appropriation by the gen- 

 eral government for each experiment station will be |30,000 per annum. 



The one who deserves special credit for the latter act was the late Hon. 

 H. C. Adams, a member of congress from Wisconsin. To him more than 

 to any other man, even more than all other men not officially concerned 

 in its passage, is due the credit. As a member of the executive com- 

 mittee of the National Association of Agricultural Colleges and Ex- 

 l)eriment Stations, I have visited Washington many times, with other 

 members of the committee during the past three years in behalf of this 

 legislation. We always found Mr. Adams at the helm, ready to confer 

 and advise. He was a man of most remarkable energy, sane and sen- 

 sible at all times. He threw all his energy and even his very life into 

 the passage of this act. His untimely death at the i^iditorium Hotel, 

 Chicago, on July 9th, has brought universal sorrow to all friends of sci- 

 entific and practical agriculture. 



The state of Michigan has in recent years supplemented the funds 

 received from the general government to the extent of about $9,000 

 annually. The northern peninsula and South Haven sub-stations are 

 supported entirely by the college. The expense of publishing the sta- 

 tion bulletins is annually about |4,000 and is borne by the college. 

 During the past year the following bulletins were issued and mailed to 

 our regular bulletin list, which now numbers nearly 40,000 farmers 

 of Michigan : 



No. 232, Fertilizer Analysis, Station Chemist A. J. Patten. 



No. 233, Insects of the Garden, Entomologist R. H. Pettit. 



No. 234, Feeding Dairy Cows, Director C. D. Smith. 



No. 235, Succotash as a Soiling Crop, Professor R. S. Shaw. 



No. 236, Spraying for Potato Blight, Assistant C. A. McCue. 



No. 237, Digester Tankage for Swine, Professor R. S. Shaw. 



No. 238, First Annual Report of the Grade Dairy Herd, Professor 

 R. S. Shaw and A. C. Anderson. 



Special 34, Corn Improvement, Professor J. A. Jeffery. 



Special 35, Report of the South Haven Sub-station, Professor L. R. 

 Taft and T. A. Farrand. 



These bulletins are, of course, not all read by all farmers who receive 

 them. A farmer engaged entirely in fruit culture is not likely to take 

 much interest in a dairy bulletin, but that a great many of these bulle- 

 tins are read intelligently and the advice therein given followed, is 

 evident to anyone who attends farmers' institutes or mingles in any 

 way with the farmers of the state. With experiment station bulletins 

 to be had for the asking, with farmers' institutes brought to his very 



