5 GEORGE V. SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 • A. 1915 



REPORT OF THE DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY. 



FRANK T. SHUTT, M.A., Y.I.G., F.R.S.C., 

 Dominion Ciikmist. 



Ottawa, March 31, 1914. 



J. H. Grisdalk, Esq., B. Agr., 



Director, Dominion Experimental Farms, 

 Ottawa, Ont. 



Sir, — I have the honour to submit herewith the twenty-seventh Annual Report 

 of the Division of Chemistry of the Dominion Experimental Farms. 



For the most part the work of the Division during the year now closing has 

 been a continuation of the various researches, investigations and experiments which 

 have occupied our attention for a number of years past, though several new ijroblems 

 of very considerable importance to Canadian agriculture have been attacked. 



Very satisfactory progress, we believe, has been made in all the branches of the 

 Division's activities, the increased laboratory accommodation made possible by the 

 extension of the Chemical Building and the appointment of additional assistants 

 on the staff having very greatly facilitated the purely analytical work. 



The correspondence continues to increase and the requests of farmers for the 

 examination of soils and other matters of an agricultural nature, become more 

 numerous. This phase of the work, which may be considered as directly educational 

 and ndvisojy, has been encouraged from the first, for the information thus sent out 

 instructs and assists the man on the farm in his difficulties and everyday work. 

 Valuable and important as are the published reports and bulletins, this direct com- 

 munication with the individual farmer who is honestly seeking for help has had a 

 special influence and valiie, as our experience of many years has amply proven. It 

 has shown itself to be not only the best and most direct means of reaching the indi- 

 vidual, but one that has proved of very considerable service iji the neighbourhood or 

 district of the individual, since every farmer, more or less, acts as a centre in the 

 wider dissemination of the knowledge. We have sought to malvc this Division a 

 bureau of information for the Dominion on subjects relating generally to the 

 chemistry of agriculture, to which all may apply with their questions regarding the 

 nature, composition and properties of soils, manures and fertilizers, forage plants 

 and feeding stuffs, insecticides, the requirements of stock and crops, etc., etc., and 

 the farmers, we are pleased to record, are more and more recognizing that we are 

 able, in supplying the dasired information, to assist them very materially. 



The samples received for analysis or examination during the past year are classi- 

 fied in the subjoined table, the provinces from which they were forwarded being 

 indicated. Many of these snmples have been taken in connection with the several 

 investigations carried on by the Division, but a very large propnrtiou of tliem have 

 been sent in by farmers. 



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