EXPERIMENT STATION REPORTS 129 



REPORT OF CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE EXPERIMENT 



STATION. 



Prof. C. D. SniiUi, Director of Experiment Station: 



I herewith submit the annual report of the Chemical Department ot 

 the Experiment Station for the year ending June 30, 1897. 



WORK IN THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY. 



A large number of chemical analysis have been made during the year, 

 the most important of which may be placed in the following classes: 



L COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



So important to the farmer and fruitgrower is the composition of the 

 fertilizers he buys, as determining their money value as well as the 

 manural value, that large attention has been given to this subject. Dur- 

 ing the year eighty samples of commercial fertilizers have been collected 

 and analyzed, and the results of such analyses have been given to the 

 public in Bulletin 145 for all the fertilizers licensed for sale in this State. 

 So large has been the demand for this bulletin that the edition is nearly 

 exhausted, yet requests from farmers for "the fertilizer book" come almost 

 daily to this office. 



II. ANALYSES FOR THE FARM DEPARTMENT. 



The co-operation of the Farm and the Chemical Departments brings 

 them into close relation in the work of the Station. As an illustration, 

 the following list of analyses made for the Farm Department is given: 



Samples of butter 5 



Grains 3 



Fodders and feeding stuffs 65 



Ashes 1 



Sugar beets 2 



Soil waters (drainage) 6 



in. MISCELLANEOUS ANALYSIS AND INVESTIGATIONS. 



The foregoing list falls far short of covering the work of this Depart- 

 ment. In addition, analyses have been made of samples of salt, of iron 

 and steel, of sugar, of milk, of manure, of soil, etc. It is a matter of 

 weekly occurrence to receive minerals for indentification or analysis. A 

 man finds a rock full of yellow specks that glitter like gold, and he is 

 anxious to know whether he has a gold mine, and is disappointed to 

 find it is only mica. Another discovers beautiful yellow crystals and is 

 sure it is gold, and his hopes vanish when he learns it is only iron pyrites, 

 17 



