DEPARTMENT REPOKTS. 47' 



tlie College, can accommodtite 75 students. The total dormitory accommoda- 

 tions for students in the College is 202. There are 142 students now occu- 

 pying the rooms, leaving but Gl places for the new freshmen class to be received 

 in September, Thirty-one seniors go out in November, so that number addi- 

 tional can be admitted in the spring, if they come at that time qualified to 

 enter a class advanced one term in algebra, history, rhetoric and composition. 

 It is evident that the question of more room must soon present itself to the 

 Board. 



OTHER NEEDS. 



The chemical laboratory will need enlarging for another class, — both the 

 lecture room and the working room. The botanical department should have a 

 working laboratory and lecture room, and museum in a building especially 

 devoted to it; and the general museum is growing beyond the limits of the 

 small accommodations it now has. 



The College has been the recipient during the past two years of many visits 

 from farmers, coming in granges, clubs, or in small parties. By this means, 

 and by the winter institutes, the practical character of its instruction is becom- 

 ing more widely known. 



T. C. ABBOT, President. 



R. G. BAIRD, Secretary. 



REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY. 



To the President of the State Agricultural College: 



I herewith present my report of the Chemical Department for the Collegiate 

 year now closing. 



At the time of making my last report, my Assistant in Chemistry and 

 myself were engaged in the chemical analysis of a large number of varieties of 

 ■wheat raised in this State, and in an elaborate investigation of the comparative 

 food value of the flour of these varieties of wheat. This work required seventy- 

 seven separate analyses of wheat and flour, besides a vast number of experiments 

 to determine their comparative value. Nearly the whole of the winter vacation 

 of both of us was consumed in this work, and in attending the Farmers' 

 Institutes. While this work laid a heavy burden on the Department, it -was 

 cheerfully borne because the people received the benefit, and the College could 

 thus repay the State, in part at least, for the large sums which had been 

 expended in its support. When the results of these investigations were 

 published the price of Clawson wheat rose 10 cents a bushel in all parts of the 

 State, and instead of being graded as " No. 3, red," it was everywhere graded 

 "No. 1, white." Many farmers have endorsed the public declaration of one 

 of their number that this " analysis had saved to the farmers of Michigan more 

 than the Agricultural College had ever cost them." 



The Committee on Education of the State Grange made a report -which was 

 adopted at their annual meeting last December in which it was said "if 

 this investigation had been made sooner it would have saved to the farmers of 

 this State millions of dollars." Yet the same effort to decry Clawson wheat 



