54 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. '. 



THE ARBORETUM. 



The report for 1908 contains just Avhat I should say this year. ■ 



A BOTANICAL MUSEUM. 



In the spasmodic efforts made from time to time for the past ten 

 years to secure a much needed addition to the Botanical Laboratory, I 

 had in mincj, to use one room for a small museum, but the pressing need 

 of more class room to accomodate a great increase in the number of 

 students, forces me to abandon the museum. From 1880 to 1890, I col- 

 lected and made a museum housed in the flret laboratory, which burned 

 after serving ten years. 



The total number of entries of articles was 2,775, though in many in- 

 stances there were duplicate specimens. Some were purchased, some 

 given us after solicitation, a very few were at the college when I came, 

 but 1,895, over three-fifths of the whole, were collected by my own hands. 

 The cost of the specimens and cases was |5,085, saying nothing about 

 my time, Avhich was no small item. The visitor could have no conception 

 of the labor required to gather, prepare, label, catalog, and arrange such 

 a collection, and it was not yet half completed. 



I estimate the value of the specimens saved from the fire at f32(). 

 As I have previously shown you, these remnants have occupied rooms 

 in the basement and attic now for seventeen years, besides two yeai*s 

 in barns, dwelling houses and elsewhere. 



I collected and exhibited timber at the Philadelphia Exposition in 

 1870, also that held in New Orleans. 



As was to be expected, this was largely an economic museum of plant 

 j)roducts, and received many complimentary expressions from visitors 

 who not infrequently spoke of it as unique and more interesting than 

 any other museum ever visited. 



STATE FAIR. 



This is the third year in which I have i)repared and kept a plat of 

 economic i)lauts growing on the grounds of the State Fair. This year 

 there are fifty-one kinds of plants. 



EXTENSION WORK AND QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 



This section of my report is here inserted, as a matter of record, not 

 for the ])urpose of repeating what you may very likely already know. 

 During the past year, about nine hundred inquiries have come to me for 

 answer, I enumerate some of them. "What weed seeds are contained in 

 enclosed samples of alfalfa, clover, grasses?" Samples of plants infested 

 with fungi, molds, insect galls, bacteria, nematodes; eggs of angleworms 

 had been found in great numbei-s beneath a pile of tops of sugar 

 beets and it was feared they were some fungous disease; native and 

 cultivated plants were sent for identification; questions concerning 

 meadows and pastures; how to make a lawn, or golf grounds; is it 

 safe to keep clover seed for a few years? "Tell about spraying to kill 

 dandelions and mustard ; how to grow ginseng and where get the plants ; 

 how to stop drifting sands; mark out a short course for farmers; how to 



