264 EEPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



it insoluble. Methods were devised for the differentiation of the 

 soluble from insoluble phosphorus. 



A number of different lines of work were also carried on with 

 Hatch and miscellaneous funds. The influence of sulphur on wool 

 production was studied cooperatively by the departments of agricul- 

 tural chemistry and animal husbandry. The object of this work is to 

 determine whether or not a casual relation exists between the form 

 and amount of sulphur supplied in the feed and its relation to the 

 growth of wool. Incidentally, results showed that our farm feeds 

 contain greater quantities of sulphur than has been supposed, and it 

 is suggested that the low results which have been previously reported 

 are due to faulty analytical methods. On the basis of existing 

 analyses, it was considered that a 100-bushel corn crop would remove 

 only about one-fourth of a pound per acre, whereas the analytical 

 methods devised in this work showed that the actual loss is about 

 8 pounds. 



The veterinary dej^artment of the station was forced to give con- 

 siderable attention to an anthrax outbreak occurring on the uni- 

 versity farm. In this connection the susceptibility of swine to this 

 disease was* observed, and it was found that the general opinion that 

 hogs do not acquire anthrax unless fed on anthrax-infected carcasses 

 is erroneous, as the death of the hogs in the cases under observation 

 must have come from soil infection. The lesions upon post-mortem 

 examination were found far from typical, and without a micro- 

 scopical examination would not have been regarded as anthrax from 

 a clinical point of view. In experiments with young pigs the disease 

 was not produced by infection through feeding, even where laceration 

 of the mucous membrane of the mouth was produced, nor by 

 cutaneous inoculation, but with subcutaneous injection young pigs 

 succumbed. 



The chemist continued his studies on the relation of " metabolic " 

 water produced in tissues to the growth of plants and animals. It 

 was shown that the action of this "metabolic" water plays an im- 

 portant part in the germination of seeds. Observations made upon 

 various insects, such as clothes' moths and grain weevils, which sub- 

 sist entirely upon air-dried material containing less than 10 per cent 

 of water, indicate the presence of over 50 per cent of water in their 

 tissues. 



The improvement work on existing varieties of fall rye, spring 

 and winter wheat, carried on by the agronomy department, has re- 

 sulted in a marked improvement in yield and uniformity. Last 

 year the pedigreed barleys were disseminated through the Wisconsin 

 Experiment Association. The new varieties of wheat and rye on 

 the station farm show a marked increase in yielding capacity over 

 ordinary sorts. The yield of pedigreed oats No. 4 on the station 



