ADDRESSES 263 



territory for the purpose of establishing and maintaining 

 an experiment department in connection with the colleges 

 of agriculture and the mechanic arts, to be known and 

 designated as an "agricultural experiment station." 



Under the provisions of this act the station at Amherst 

 was organized, March 2, 1888, with four departments, — 

 the agricultural, horticultural, entomological, and mete- 

 orological. By an arrangement with the state station all 

 questions of a chemical nature are referred to it for in- 

 vestigation, thereby saving the expense of erecting and 

 equipping another laboratory. Each department has a 

 building of its own allotted exclusively to its own use. In 

 the meteorological department a full set of self-recording 

 instruments has been placed, where daily and hourly ob- 

 servations of all meteorological phenomena are taken and 

 kept. The horticultural department has its green-houses, 

 in which tests of fertilizers under glass are made, and where 

 experimentation is continued throughout the year. The 

 agricultural department has its barn fitted up in the most 

 approved way for conducting tests in feeding, or investi- 

 gating questions pertaining to the dairy. The entomologi- 

 cal department has its insectary, where plants are grown 

 and the life-histories of their insect enemies studied, while 

 at the same time trial is being made of the best methods 

 of applying different insecticides. The general policy of the 

 station has been to furnish information on such subjects 

 as were attracting the attention of the public, and to in- 

 vestigate questions of practical importance. It issues regu- 

 lar quarterly bulletins, and special ones, as occasion seems 

 to demand; thus, when the gypsy moth appeared in the 

 eastern part of the state a special illustrated bulletin, 



