REPORT OF THE PROFESSOR OF HORTICULTURE. 77 



iiications and suggestions. It is proposed to inaugurate as many experiments 

 as our means will admit for the benefit of fruit-growers and others. The means 

 and appliances of the Department are very limited in this respect. However, 

 many experiments are under way. The most prominent at present is the test- 

 ing of new fruits and vegetables. We solicit new varieties from originators, 

 desiring, especially, to secure them before they are put upon the market. We 

 are attempting the improvement of promising wild fruits. The first essential 

 to successful experiment is a systematic record. In order, therefore, to make 

 an exact record of the whole visible biography of all our cultivated plants front 

 sowing to maturity, arrangements have been made for competent observers — 

 one for the fruit garden and orchards, one for the vineyards, and one for the 

 vegetable garden — to make daily notes throughout the season upon conditions 

 of plants and important phenomena of growth and structure. This arrange- 

 ment will enable us to jiresent in systematic tabulated form the seasons of 

 germination and maturity, the period of the ]3laut's greatest and least vigor, 

 the exact external influences of culture and weather, the detailed characteristics 

 of leaves, flowers and fruits, and many other highly important features of 

 experiment. 



This report, so far as this paragraph, was jjublished and distributed to the 

 press and to to the horticulturists of the State as a "Statement concerning the 

 Department of Horticulture and Landscape of the Agricultural College of 

 Michigan." It received extended and favorable commentfrom the press, and I 

 hope that it has awakened an interest in the college among our very extensive 

 fruit-growing population. 



The improvements upon the college premises, so far as the work of the De- 

 partment is concerned, have been extensive in certain directions. The removal 

 of over a hundred trees has improved our landscape in many places. The most 

 patent fault with the grounds is the sombreness of expression. This fault must 

 be corrected by the judicious removal of trees and by the introduction of 

 attractive flowering shrubs. The drainage of the apple orchard and vegetable 

 gardens has been overhauled. The cat-hole east of tlie farm house has been 

 drained in the most thorough manner by Mr. C. M. McLouth. We intend to 

 grow crops upon it next year. 



The needs of the Department are many and urgent. The supply of tools of 

 all sorts is small and poor. There is no suitable room for keeping tools, for 

 packing, sorting or storing fruits or vegetables. The basement of College Hall 

 which is now used for this purpose, is dark, damp, and cold, and in every way 

 entirely unfit for our use. It is also much too small. The storing of vegetables 

 in the basement is unwholesome. The basement should be used wholly as a 

 store-room for College Hall, having ash bins built in. The present method of 

 storing ashes in barrels is bungling and unsafe. The Department needs a work- 

 room which can be used in cold weather. Many students desire to carry on 

 illustrative labor in root grafting and in other directions, but which cannot be 

 done to any extent with our present accommodations. We have been ol)liged to 

 work out of doors and in a cramped corner of the horse barn during the cold 

 weather in making mats for hot-beds, and in doing other work which is illus- 

 trative and attractive to students. We have no place for keeping seeds or for 

 preserving specimens for class instruction. We have been obliged to sell nearly 

 all our vegetables at a sacrifice tliis fall for want of any place for storing them. 

 The instruction has been largely suited to our means of illustration; conse- 

 quently it has been fragmentary and unsatisfactory in many directions. There 

 has been given no adequate instruction in the important matters concerning 



