346 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



On the poultry farm will be found 1,000 birds consisting of the leading 

 American, Asiatic. Mediterranean, and English breeds. 



To further strengthen the live-stock equipment preparations have been made 

 for the use of some of the best imported animals of the several breeds. 



BOTANY DEPABTMENT. 



The botanical department occupies the top floor of the central building. The 

 special laboratories devoted to morphology, mycology, and economic botany are 

 well equipped with microscopes, and various accessories, as well as special ap- 

 paratus such as sterilizers, and equipment for culture work to carry on work in 

 special lines of botany. Each student is providetl with an individual laboratory 

 table, microscoije, and reagents. There is also a complete liqe of preserved ma- 

 terial, a large collection of mounted microscopic slides, a large collection of 

 fungi, and a general herbarium of 70,000 specimens, containing the more im- 

 IJortant weeds and poisonous plants of the United States as well as a very rep- 

 resentative collection of economic grasses. 



DAIRY DEPARTMENT. 



The dairy department is fully equipped to give excellent demonstration work 

 in its creamery, testing laboratory, farm dairy room, and ice-cream laboratory. 



ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT. 



For the work in rural economics the college library affords ample opportunity 

 for reference work in connection with the lectures given. 



DEPARTMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



The department of horticulture and forestry has commodious quarters in the 

 new hall of agriculture, also a separate laboratory building and about 10,000 

 square feet of glass. On the campus, which covers about 90 acres, is found an 

 interesting collection of native and exotic trees and shrubs. The field area of 

 the department amounts to about 90 acres more, which includes various 

 orchards and other fruit plantations, the nurseries, fruiticetum, vegetable gar- 

 den, and Upper Mississippi Valley plant introduction garden. This garden in- 

 cludes specimens of various species of the apple, crab apple, and pear ; also a 

 few walnuts, apricots, persimmons, elms, poplars, hydrangeas, hawthorn, roses, 

 and some other species of minor importance. 



In apple breeding a study of heredity is being made, which includes investi- 

 gations as to what characters in the apple are unit characters and which of 

 them are Mendelian. The station orchards and nurseries now include practically 

 all the hardiest valuable cultivated varieties of the apple known to American 

 horticulture, together with the leading amateur and commercial sorts which can 

 be fruited in Iowa; also representatives of the native and many exotic species 

 with many of their hybrids. They contain over 10.000 apple seedlings, most 

 •of which are of known parentage and some are of the second generation with 

 known parentage, a rare occurrence among apples. 



One entire orchard exhibits an interesting experiment in top-working less 

 hiirdy commercial varieties of superior fruit upon selected hardy stocks. 



Fine opportunities are afforded for the study of ornamentals. The campus 

 contains over 100 species of trees and most of the shrubs which are hardy are 

 found la the fruiticetum or oa the campus. 



