The Experiment Department. 



This has been conducted along the same general lines as in 

 previous years, new work being taken up as occasion seemed to 

 demand. Four regular bulletins have been issued, as required by 

 law, and a special one in May, " On the most profitable use of 

 commercial fertilizers," being a translation of a monograph by 

 Prof. Paul Wagner, Director of the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station at Darmstadt, Geruuiny. The increasing demand for our 

 publications now requires an edition of eleven thousand, and the 

 time must soon come when it will be found impossible to supply 

 requests from outside of the State. 



The work of the different departments during the year can be 

 briefly summarized as follows : — 



The Agricultural. 



Report has been made on several varieties of Japanese crops, 

 viz., four varieties of beans and three of millet. Of the latter, 

 two, the Setaria Italica {Jap. Mochi Awa) and the Setaria Italica 

 {Jap. Awa), seem especially promising for seed production and 

 fodder, yielding respectively at the rate of twenty-eight and fifty- 

 five bushels per acre and two and one-half and two tons of straw. 



A careful tabulation of soil tests with different fertilizers in ten 

 localities of the State was made in Bulletin No. 9, and the grand 

 average increase to hard corn and stover per acre, taking all 

 experiments into account, was as follows : — 



For potash, . . hard corn, 0.51 bushels; stover, 643.3 pounds, 

 phosphoric acid, " " 3.56 " " 211 " 



nitrogen, . . •' " 3.72 " " 287.6 



The same soil tests have been repeated this year on a larger 

 scale with corn for grain and for the silo, and with potatoes. An 

 investigation requiring much time, respecting the " Conditions 

 affecting the strength of the calf's stomach for rennet," has been 

 concluded and report made in the January Bulletin for 1891. At 

 the request of various dairymen a series of analyses are being 

 made of samples of milk from each of forty cows in various 

 periods of lactation, and including five pure breeds and a great 



