SIXTH A]sr:tnjAL report 



DIEECTOR OF THE STATE AGEICULTUEAL EXPERI- 

 MENT STATION AT AMHERST, MASS. 



To the Honorable Board of Control. 



Gentlemen: — The past year has been, for several 

 reasons, an eventful one i# the history of the Massachusetts 

 State Agricultural Experiment Station. The State Legisla- 

 ture of 1888 has passed two acts affecting the organization 

 and the work of the Station. The membership of the 

 Board of Control has been increased, and the management 

 of the new regulations for the trade in commercial fertilizers 

 has been assigned to the director of the Station. The Board 

 of Control has also assumed the responsibility of attending 

 to all the chemical work called for in connection with investi- 

 gations instituted in the various departments of the Hatch 

 Experiment Station, reserved by the authorities of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College. The terms agreed to 

 by the Board of Trustees of the college and the Board of 

 Control of the Massachusetts Experiment Station allow five 

 thousand dollars of the Hatch fund for that work. The 

 character of the additional work, as well as the increase in 

 tinancial resources, has rendered some change in the work- 

 ing force of the Station advisable. To meet the growing 

 demand for assistance in adopted lines of investigation, a 

 department of vegetable physiology has been organized with 

 a view to assist in particular in the investigation of diseases 

 of plants by microscopic observations and otherwise. Prof. 

 James Ellis Humphrey of North Weymouth, Mass., a grad- 

 uate of Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard University, 



