334 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the diliiDg-room and kitchen. No difference is made in the pay of 

 young men and young women for their labor. 



Sixty -nine of the ninety-nine counties of the State sent students to the 

 college. The largest number was from Story County, in which the college 

 is located, being fifty-six. Several hundred volumes have been added 

 to the library, which now contains 5,000 volumes, among which may be 

 mentioned the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chambers-s Encyclopaedia, and 

 the American Cyclopedia, Audubon's Birds of America, and the promi- 

 nent works on agriculture, horticulture, and applied science. 



Professors, 7; assistants, 8; students, 300; 62 of whom were in the 

 agricultural course and 13 in the mechanical. 



KANSAS. 



Kansas State Agricultural College, at Manhattan; Rev. John A. Ander- 

 son, president. — During the year a laboratory building, having the 

 form of a cross, has been built of stone, at a cost of $8,000. It is 

 one story, containing a large office, lecture-room, balance-room, and 

 four spacious rooms for laboratory work. The professor of chemistry, 

 William K. Kedzie, says that the building has more than realized the 

 expectations which had been entertained of it. The water-system 

 proves perfect. The sky-light ventilators maintain the air of the work- 

 ing-laboratory as fresh as a home parlor. The system of sky-light ven- 

 tilators in the large physical laboratory gives not only admirable per- 

 pendicular light for handling apparatus, but, when partitioned off by 

 white screens, furnishes an apartment for photograph purposes which is 

 equaled by few galleries in the State. Also a stone horticultural build- 

 ing has been erected, one story high, with basement, and containing two 

 large lecture-rooms, recitation-rooms, workshop, and cellars. Besides 

 these, a small blacksmith-shop, with two forges, has been built. The 

 college buildings now completed are as follows: The old college build- 

 ing, three stories, 40 by CO; college building, two stories, 42 by 100; 

 laboratory building, one story, 109 by 109; horticultural building, one 

 story, 31 by 80; mechanical building, two stories, 38 by 102; and black- 

 smith-shop, 20 b3' 40; all of stone except the latter, which is of wood. 



The college-farm contains 255 acres, and is valued at $25,000. Ex- 

 periments have been made with corn, wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and 

 grasses. In the experiment of potatoes, 250 varieties were employed, 

 including nearly all those cultivated in the Eastern States. Those which 

 succeeded best were the Kansas, Cheuery, Ked Jacket, Carpenter's Seed- 

 ling, Extra Early White, Great Britain, and Ohio Beauty. AmoLg the 

 forage-plants and grasses, alfalfa, timothy, and orchard-grass proved the 

 most satisfactory. The result of the experiment with corn, by plant- 

 ing in hills and drills, was (521 bushels per acre by the former mode and 

 71 by the latter. An experiment in labor on the farm is being tried by 

 giving to each student who desires it the use of a plat of laud, teams, 

 &c., and allowing him to cultivate it as he jjleases, under the direction 

 of the superintendent, and to have the profit of the crop. This is extra 

 labor, as all the students are required by the regulations of the college 

 to devote daily one hour each to educational labor without compensa- 

 tion. 



The annual interest from the proceeds of the congressional land- 

 grant is $20,491. louring the fiscal year 5,604 acres have been sold, at 

 $5.83 per acre, and 31,461 acres remain unsold. A paper, called the In- 

 dustrial, is published weekly by the printing department of the college, 



