32 EEPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



The station is striving to gain the confidence and interest of the 

 people in its work, and for the short time it lias been in operation 

 the results seem quite satisfactory. The people seem anxious to 

 obtain seeds of plants the value of which they can see, and some 

 are quite interested in the implements and methods of cultivation 

 that have been adopted. One of the most successful implements 

 introduced was a small cultivator that cost about $5. "With one 

 of these and a carabao a man can do more and better work in the 

 field than 10 men can do with the native implements. The ad- 

 Vantages of this cultivator were quickly perceived, and arrangements 

 were made to supply a limited number of requests for them at cost. 

 The introduction of these will doubtless be followed by a demand 

 for other agricultural implements and tools and a decided advance 

 in agriculture will be brought about. 



The introduction of some improved live stock and the study of 

 some of the more important insect pests and plant diseases are 

 problems that are to be taken up as soon as possible. For the present 

 the important problem is to interest the people in agriculture and 

 get them back upon the farms. It is believed this can best be ac- 

 complished by simple experiments in which the elementary prin- 

 cii^les of agriculture are taught through ocular demonstration. 



NUTRITION INVESTIGATIONS. 



Foodstuffs of all sorts, both animal and vegetable, are agricul- 

 tural products. Through its nutrition investigations the Department 

 of Agriculture studies many questions which pertain to the utiliza- 

 tion of foods, with a view to benefiting the producer, the distributor, 

 and the consumer. As a whole the nutrition enterprise involves co- 

 operation with other bureaus of the department when this seems 

 desirable, and the supplementing, but not the duplication, of their 

 Avork, 



During the past year attention was given especially to experi- 

 ments with the respiration calorimeter, and particularly to matters 

 which have to do with meat and with cheese, to the application of 

 the results of technical experiments to the preparation of food, to 

 the preparation of bulletins, both technical and popular, and to meet- 

 ing in other ways the public demand for data on nutrition topics. 



The study of many of the practical everyda}^ problems having to 

 do with the nutrition of man as well as the investigation of complex 

 problems necessitate the accurate measurement of the income and 

 outgo of matter and energy and related factors. From time to time 

 various methods have been joroposed for accomplishing this end, and 

 apparatus of a variety of types which would measure one or more 

 of the desired factors has been devised. It has been generally con- 



