DEPARTMENT OF HORTICULTURE. 



The past year has been marked by important material advancement. 

 The new offices, class-rooms and laboratories occupying the second floor 

 of the main building have been equipped with furniture and apparatus. 

 The increased facilities have greatly augmented the efficiency of our 

 service. A beginning on much-needed greenhouse equipment was made 

 by the passage of an appropriation for the erection of glasshouses. The 

 floricultural interests of the state are enormous. Thus far they have not 

 received adequate consideration at our hands. The new houses, although 

 insufficient for our needs, will when completed enable us to take up 

 pressing problems in the culture of forcing crops and co-operate with 

 commercial florists in an effective way. 



Another important addition to the material equipment of the depart- 

 ment is the securing of fifty acres of land to be used for the growing of 

 pomological products. This will serve as a field laboratory for instruc- 

 tion and an area for experimenting. The land is being prepared for tree 

 occupancy, and plans are being made for planting and experimental work. 



Olericulture and Floriculture. 



The truck farm survey of Long Island was prosecuted for about a 

 month this summer, having been begiui a year ago. This, so far as 

 known, is the first systematic survey of vegetable-growing to be under- 

 taken by any experiment station, and the data now accumulating promise 

 to be of great interest and value to the men engaged in this industry. 

 Long Island is, perhaps, the most favored region in the State for trucking, 

 for in addition to its proximity to the best of markets it has a longer 

 growing season and milder winter than any other region, and a light, 

 sandy soil that responds immediately to fertilizers, can be worked wet 

 or dry, and is very early. The leading truckers for the most part are 

 very progressive men, and handle all departments of the business with 

 skill ; but many of the rank and file are still backward, and might be 

 greatly benefited by such a report as is contemplated. 



Thousands of acres in the interior of the island, now producing nothing 

 but scrubby growths of pine, oak and chestnut, are well adapted to vege- 

 tables, as has been shown clearly by the experimental farms of the Long 

 Island railroad at Wading river and Medford; and it is hoped to show 

 in the report that great opportunities here await the farmer of small 

 means. 



The information gathered concerns soils, crops, methods, labor, har- 

 vesting, marketing, and the like. Only one man has worked on the survey 



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