68 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Afternoon Session. 



The session was opened by Prof. L. R. Taft, of Michigan Agricultural 

 College, with a paper upon 



EXPERIMENT WORK OF 1890. 



In the original act of congress under which the agricultural colleges .of 

 this and other states were endowed, we find no mention of experiments as 

 a portion of their work; but if we read in the Congressional Record the 

 debates on the act, we shall find that the advocates of the measure expected 

 the colleges to give some attention to experiments. 



The state board of agriculture, to whose charge the Michigan Agricultural 

 college was entrusted, held similar views, and almost from the very begin- 

 ning they arranged for various experiments by the different departments. 

 The results were published in the reports of the board, and have been of 

 great value to the farming community. 



Some six years ago the state legislature passed a bill authorizing the 

 publication, by six of the departments of the college, of at least two 

 bulletins each year, to be distributed to the press and the farmers of the 

 state. Under this arrangement some seventy bulletins have been issued. 



In the spring of 1888, congress passed what was known as the Hatch 

 bill, which gave to each state and territory $15,000 annually, for the 

 establishment of experiment stations in connection with the Agricultural 

 colleges. As soon as the money was available, the trustees of the college at 

 Lansing organized the station with six departments. The president of the 

 college was appointed director, and with the heads of the departments 

 constituted the station council. The departments referred to were 

 agriculture, horticulture, chemistry, botany, entomology, and veterinary. 



The work undertaken by the horticultural department, while the great 

 principles that underlie the art have not been forgotten, has dealt largely 

 with the practical questions that suggest themselves to the mind of every 

 thinking person, and the result of which will be most likely to be 

 appreciated by the average horticulturist. 



Among the simple things we are noting with interest, are the value of 

 different stocks for apples, pears, and plums; the effect of whole-root 

 against piece-root grafting; the results obtained from using trees one, two, 

 or three years old for orchard planting; whether, as is often thought, trees 

 will not succeed when old trees have been taken out; the effect on an 

 orchard of constant tillage, as compared with keeping it in sod and 

 furnishing food in the form of ashes and stable manure. 



Considerable attention has been devoted to testing, in a comparative 

 manner, the promising new fruits. Until lately the department has lacked 

 land for extending its orchards, but we have now been assigned some 

 fourteen acres well adapted to the purpose. Last spring we planted on 

 this piece some three hundred varieties of apple, fifty each of pear and 

 cherry, forty of peach, thirty of plum, and forty of grape. Many of 

 the trees were grown in the college nursery and others were obtained from 

 reliable parties. 



In order to have a reliable test of the varieties, four trees of each were 

 as a rule obtained and were planted one rod apart each way. They can 

 grow at this distance for a number of years, and will have borne enough 

 for a thorough test before crowding. The apples were planted in squares. 



