DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 



PEESIDENT'S KEPORT. 



To the State Board of Agriculture: 



I respectfully submit the following report of the State Agricultural College, 

 for the college year, 1883 ; together with the reports of the heads of the 

 various departmeuts. So far as students and classes are concerned, the report 

 closes with the close of the college year, August 31, 1883. 



BEPORT 10 BE ANNUAL. 



In my last report I represented that the State, by its agreement with 

 congress, was under obligation to print an annual report of the college ; and 

 Governor Jerome in his retiring message called attention to the duty. The 

 following law, providing for annual reports, was accordingly passed : 



AN ACT to provide for tlie publication and distribution of tlie reports of the 

 secretary of the State Board of Aj^riculture, and the reports of the State Horti- 

 cultural Society, and to repeal all existing laws providing for the publication and 

 distribution of said reports. 



Section 1. The People of the State of Michigan enact, That the secretary of the 

 State board of agriculture shall report to the Legislature at every regular session 

 thereof, and to the Governor on the first Wednesday of January of each year when 

 the Legislature is not in session; which report shall embrace all statements, 

 accounts, prize-essays, statistics, and other information i*elative to agriculture in 

 general, proceedings of the State board of agriculture, of the State agricultural 

 college and farm, of the State agricultural society, and of the county and district 

 agricultnral societies, to be approved by the board; that eight thousand copies of 

 this report shall be printed and bound annually, prior to the first daj^ of June, and 

 shall be immediately placed at the disposal of the State board of agriculture; four 

 thousand copies to be distributed by tlie secretary of said State board of agriculture 

 as the board shall direct; and the remaining four thousand copies to be distributed 

 prior to the first day of September after publication by the secretary of the board, 

 to the secretary of the State agricultural society, to the secretarj' of the State 

 grange, and to the secretaries of the various district and county socities, as equally as 

 may be, according to the population of said counties, to be, by said secretaries, dis- 

 tributed among the various reviewing committees of county and district fairs, giv- 

 ing one volume of said report to each of said committees as shall be present and 

 discharge the duties of the oflice on tlie daj^ of the county and district fairs; and 

 in addition to the foregoing, there shall be published a number of copies of said 

 report equal to the number of reports bound as joint documents, which shall be 

 disposed of in the same manner as the joint documents, also a suflicient number of 

 copies to supply crop correspondents with one cop}' each, which shall be distributed 

 by the secretarj' of >tate. 



Sec. 2. Has reference to the State horticultural society. 



Sec. 3. Repeals all other acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of 

 this act. 



Approved June 6,1883. 



