263 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



4 GEORGE V., A. 19H 

 Average Nitrogen-Content of Rain and Snow. 



(Amount of Nitrogen per acre, as Free and Albuminoid Ammonia and aa Nitrates 



and Nitrites.) 



The rain and snow in falling through the atmosphere exert a cleansing action, 

 washing out and filtering out many impurities, both gaseous and solid. This function 

 of the precipitation undoubtedly has an important hygienic bearing but, further, as 

 we have seen, it furnishes the soil with a notable amount of that most important 

 and most costly of all plant foods, nitrogen, in a condition immediately available for 

 crop use. Among the many useful ways in which the rain and snow affect agricul- 

 ture, this role in which they act as fertilizing agents must not be overlooked. From 

 the data of this investigation it would appear that the manurial value of the rain 

 and snow, at current prices of nitrogen in fertilizers, would be almost $1 per acre, 

 annually. 



THE WATER SUPPLY OF FARM HOMESTEADS. 



There ought to be little necessity nowadays to urge upon farmers the desirability 

 of a pure water supply, for in recent years there are few subjects that have received 

 more attention in the agricultural press and in the literature issued by authorities 

 on hygiene. The relation generally of water to health, the fact that there are certain 

 diseases, more or less prevalent in rural parts as in cities, and which are frequently 

 epidemic in character, that are essentially water-borne, constitutes knowledge that 

 should be in the possession of all. Nevertheless, a survey of present conditions on 

 the average farm and the outbreaks of typhoid fever that still occur from time to 

 time on farms, in villages, assure us that it is incumbent to continue our propaganda 

 again and again, to bring before our people the danger to health in using a polluted 

 water supply. For twenty-five years, the Chemical Division of the Dominion Experi- 

 mental Farms has taken an active part, not only in the dissemination of information 

 regarding the importance of pure water to the good health of the farmer and his 

 family and the thriftiness of his stock, but in examining and reporting upon such 

 samples of well waters as may be submitted according to directions for collection, etc., 

 obtainable upon application. Many have availed themselves of this privilege and 

 during that period many hundreds, probably thousands, of samples from farm home- 

 steads have been analyzed. But the work must be continued and extended, for we 

 feel assured that there still remains a very large number of farmers who as yet have 

 not fully realized the importance of pure water and who, by reason of an improperly 



