THE ANNUAL FAIR OF 1886. 179 



apparatus. For most of the time they all work on the same subjects, but each 

 member of the class has a special topic to which he gives more attention. 

 Each student makes small drawings and notes as he pursues his investigations. 

 The drawings here exhibited are those of the special topics above mentioned, 

 and with the exception of a portion of three plates they are original from 

 nature. These are not selections but are all the drawings on the special topics 

 which were given the students. Each student made other smaller drawings 

 not here exhibited. A glance at the drawings will reveal the name of the 

 objects and the name of the students making them. Below are the special 

 topics here illustrated, each by a card 23x31 inches: Structure of a leaf, the 

 mouths of a leaf, the young hairs of a leaf, the sting of a nettle, protoplasm 

 in motion, the palisade cells in a leaf, starch of the common potato and the 

 wild one of Arizona compared, the framework of a leaf, the crystals in the 

 cells, the chlorophyll granules, why nuts are hard, tough and brittle, white ash 

 as seen magnified, the cells of oak, the cells of an apple, intercellular spaces, 

 crystoliths or compound crystals, sections of buds, cotton, flax, hemp, silk and 

 wool, pollen and its growth, the structure of a grain of wheat, the leaf of a 

 Norway spruce, the hairs on pumpkin vines, the experiments on protoplasm, 

 sections of the leaves of grasses, root hairs, the tips of roots, the milk tubes in 

 plants, the structure of a brown sea-weed, a study of pond scums, diatoms, 

 •oscillatoria, plants which crawl and wriggle, wheat-rust, corn-smut, the quince 

 rust, common bread mould, a cup fungus. 



Here also are exhibited several kinds of compound microscopes such as the 

 students use, retailed at $40 to 160 each. And here is a convenient box in- 

 vented by the students and Dr. Beal. The box is for holding the small acces- 

 sories used by every student. 



The work spoken of was not attempted in any American college twelve years 

 ago. Students are taught to become independent workers. 



EXHIBIT OF THE HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. 



The horticultural exhibit from the Agricultural College was put in place by 

 Prof. L. H. Bailey and consisted of a number of Haskell's grapes and 76 vari- 

 ties of tomatoes grown ou the college grounds the past year. With regard to 

 the experimental tomatoes Prof. Bailey says: It was the intention to grow all 

 the sorts advertised in American catalogues, but two or three kinds were over- 

 looked. There are several reasons for undertaking this experiment. There 

 has been very little attention given to tomato culture in scientific or experimental 

 establishments, althouh theg importance of the crop is very great. The varieties 

 of tomatoes are now so numerous and their individual merit so evenly praised that 

 the inexpert cultivator is confused. The tomato rot is also becoming a serious 

 difficulty. Methods of training and culture need to be discussed. Moreover, there 

 has been no scientific discussion, so far as I know, of the methods or directions 

 of variation, the origin of varieties, etc. 



The most important as well as the most difficult of these problems is that of 

 determining which varieties are duplicates. There is probably no garden 

 plant which is so difficult to study in this respect as the tomato, from the fact 

 that varieties are characterized almost entirely by the color, size and shape of 

 ■a fruit which is of all others the most variable. Moreover the tomato has 

 been in general cultivation so long that varieties are not yet fixed. Add to 

 these facts the hasty and bungling methods or lack of method of seedsmen and 

 others in securing the so-called new varieties. The wide variation of the same 



