618 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
‘ 
OTHER INVESTIGATIONS, 
During the year I have also made a large collection of Palm and 
and other fibers, but in consequence of lack of sufficient help and 
pressing demands for information regarding fats and oils, I have 
been unable to make any extended investigations in this direction. 
Independently of these investigations a large number of examina- 
tions have been made for various correspondents throughout the 
United States, such as of milk and bacon supposed to have been 
poi-oned ; adulterations of textile fibers; tests of the fibers of ramie,. 
mulberry, and the century plant asto the texture and purity, the 
samples having been furnished by parties engaged in the manu- 
facture of machinery for separating fibers from the gum and bark 
of the plant; improved flour from Ohio; certain investigations 
for the superintendent of the propagating gardens; water froma 
condemned pump in the city of Washington, found to be very impure, 
demonstrating that the action on the part of the board of health had 
been justifiable; investigation of certain poisonous plants for the 
Army Medical Museum which were supposed to have caused the 
death' of an inmate of the Soldiers’ Home in this city; well water 
containing animal organisms; a sample of 100 pounds of fat picked 
up in ‘mid-ocean, at first taken for ambergris, found to be fluorescent 
under the sulphuric acid test; a new edible mushroom, found in 
Florida, examined and reported upon: This species is greedily eaten 
by cats. Examination of spices as to their purity, received from a 
wholesale firm in Baltimore, Md., and many other investigations of 
greater or less importance have been made in behalf of the farming 
and commercial interests. 
INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL BREEDS. 
In thé course of these investigations, through the courteous co- 
operation of breeders and owners of valuable herds of cattle, I have 
been supplied with samples of butters of registered milch cows of 
different breeds in various parts of the United States. 
My object has been to ascertain whether butter crystals are modi- 
fied in form, color, etc., by breed, climate, marked changes of feed, 
or other conditions. These investigations are comparatively limited, 
yet the practical results have a substantial value, as shown by my 
large collection of photographs representing the crystals of these 
butters. 
Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10, Plate 1, represent the general form of the 
aggregations of crystals obtained from butter of the Shorthorn Dur- 
ham cow. They are mostly smooth, globose bodies, yielding in a few 
days secondary crystals of a rosette-like form, which appear first in 
the center of each globose body. The globose bodies finally dissolve 
in the oil in which they float. A few secondary crystals are seen in 
Figs. land 2. Figs. 7 and 9 represent secondary only, which change 
in time to the highly stellate or tertiary form seen in Figs. 8 and 11. 
These, in turn, gradually degenerating, become, to all appearances, 
under low powers, amorphous granules, though in point of fact they 
are composed of minute spicules very difficult to determine even i 
high powers of the microscope, Butters of all breeds pass throug 
these changes. 
There appears to be a tendency in the butter crystals of Shorthorn 
and of the cross-breeds, as, for example, Jersey and Shorthorn, to 
