No. 4.] EXPERIMENT STATION.. 257 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON EXPERIMENTS AND STA- 

 TION WORK. 



[Read and accepted at the Annual Meeting, Jan. 13, 1903.] 



The station work is continued as usual, as reports of the 

 various department heads will show. All this work is in- 

 tended to benefit the practical farmer and gardener, but it is 

 doubtful if under present conditions this aim is reached. 



Perhaps the publications of the station are not as widely 

 distributed as is desirable, and if this Board could hold a 

 summer or autumn field meeting at the station, with personal 

 explanations of experiments by the professors, many valu- 

 able suggestions might be disseminated through the members 

 to others who are unable to avail themselves of the same op- 

 portunity. 



Within a few years the botanical department has made 

 experiments in the so-called "soil sterilization," and very 

 successfully ; so much so that many large market gardeners 

 have adopted the plan, and are conducting their business 

 with much greater profit. 



I am frequently met by inquiries as to how certain insect 

 pests can be exterminated from gardens, and the safest 

 reply is : " Send a specimen to the Experiment Station at 

 Amherst." They are always on the lookout for such enemies 

 there, and the beauty of their slirubbery, their fruit trees 

 and their finely kept grounds attest how well the battle is 

 fought. 



Respectfully submitted, 



WILLIAM H. SPOONER, 



Chairmari' 



