312 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



At the time of our visit in November the harvesting was 

 complete, and we can report all of the standard crops good. 

 We found both barns full of hay, fifteen hundred bushels of 

 corn, twenty-two hundred bushels of potatoes, one thousand 

 bushels of onions and fifty tons of roots. Many of the new 

 forage plants also are being cultivated, thus giving the stu- 

 dents an opportunity of observing their habits of growth, 

 as well as their relative value for feeding purposes. 



The cattle stables were well filled with the herd of grade 

 Durhams, while there are representative animals of nearly 

 all our prominent breeds. The horse stables have an ac- 

 quisition in a French coach colt, while the Percherons and 

 their grades fill the remainder of the stalls. 



At our November visit we found the land all ploughed for 

 next season's planting, much of it having been done with a 

 sulky plough. 



Among the improvements of the past year are the labora- 

 tory at the insectary ; quite a stretch of new roads com- 

 pleted, requiring a large amount of grading ; the levelling 

 of the wood lot south of the Hadley road, and the cultivating 

 and seeding of the same for permanent pasture. 



The Horticultural Department. 

 The horticultural department during the past season has 

 been carried on in about the same lines as in former years. 

 Comparison has been made with the following number of 

 varieties of fruits the past season : 150 varieties of apples ; 

 67 of pears ; 49 of peaches ; 103 of plums, including all the 

 best types ; 13 of apricots ; 2 of nectarines ; 8 of quinces, 

 and many seedlings ; 33 of cherries ; 143 named varieties 

 of grapes, and some 600 seedlings not yet fruited; 20 of 

 currants; 17 of gooseberries; 25 of red raspberries; 31 

 of blackcap raspberries; 21 of blackberries ; 157 named 

 varieties of strawberries, and 500 seedlings. Plantings 

 have also been made of several new species and hybrids. 

 The past season was very unfavorable for close comparison, 

 on account of the late frost in the spring, drought in the 

 early summer, early frost in the fall and the worst wind and 

 hailstorm known in that vicinity since the establishment of 



