156 EEPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



The Maine station has established many of its lines of investigation 

 on a high-grade research basis and is successfully pointing out the 

 application of the results to the needs of the farmer. 



MARYLAND. 



Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, College Park. 



Department of Maryland Agricultural College. 



H. J. Patterson, B. S., Director. 



The lines of work pursued by the Maryland station during the 

 3'ear were essentially the same as those previously reported, and 

 favorable progress was made. The changes in the station staff in- 

 cluded the resignations of C. W. Nash, assistant agronomist, C. L. 

 Opperman, associate poultryman, and the appointments of T. R. 

 Stanton as assistant agronomist, C. O. Appleman to the position 

 authorized in plant chemistry and physiolog;\% and E. H. Waite as 

 associate poultryman. G. E. Gage was promoted from associate 

 biologist to biologist. The additions to the equipment made during 

 the year included a new operating room and hospital for use in con- 

 nection with the poultry disease investigations, a laboratory for work 

 in plant physiology, two new greenhouses, and a cement-block mush- 

 room house. One of the new greenhouses is set aside for research 

 work in horticulture, wdiile the other will be devoted to rose culture. 



Considerable progress was made in a number of Adams-fund 

 projects and certain lines of research were well advanced toward 

 completion. In connection with the project on the rate of diffusion 

 in the soil of different forms of lime, the study of the amounts of 

 lime carried off in the drainage waters w'as continued and the labora- 

 tory work was checked with field experiments. 



Considerable time w'as devoted to the problems relating to city 

 milk supplies, special attention being given to the precipitation of 

 the casein as a measure of differentiating the milk of different breeds 

 of cattle and as determining the degree of its digestibility for infants 

 and invalids. The study of the effect of leucocytes in milk combined 

 microscojDical and chemical work, and some of the results obtained 

 were nearly ready for publication. 



The poultry-disease investigations included the study of a tape- 

 worm disease and the determination of methods for its control, as 

 published in Bulletin 139 of the station, an investigation of the 

 bacteria and animal organisms in the intestinal contents and mucosa 

 of healthy chickens, ranging in age from those just hatched up to 

 fowls two years old, and observations on the effect of complete cecu- 

 nectomy upon the metabolism of the domestic fowl to determine the 

 part which the ceca performs and its relation to disease. 



