REPORT dF THE SECRETARY AND LIBRARIAN. 301 



It is well known that the United States government has passed 

 a law, known as the Hatch Experiment Station act, to provide for 

 the establishment of an Agricultural Station in every State and 

 Territory, and appropriating $15,000 yearly for each. Besides 

 these, such stations had previously been established in several 

 States under State laws. As the investigations carried on at 

 these stations relate largely to principles underlying the operations 

 of horticulture, as well as of agriculture, the Library Committee 

 have thought it desirable to procure, if possible, complete sets of 

 all the publications of these stations, and in this we have been 

 reasonably successful, having sets more or less complete of forty- 

 six experiment stations in the United States, besides two in 

 Canada. I wish here to acknowledge the assistance in this 

 work kindly offered by President Goodell of the State Agricultural 

 College, which has been of great value. It should be understood 

 that this work is not, like the arrangement and numbering of the 

 books, one which when once done will not require to be done 

 again for years, but forms a permanent and continuous and by no 

 means a light addition to the labors of those having immediate 

 charge of the Library. 



Another event in the history of the Library which should not 

 be passed unnoticed is the reception from the family of our late 

 President, Charles M. Hovey, of one of the largest donations, if 

 not the largest, ever received from one source. The arrangement 

 of these has ah-eady involved much work, and will require much 

 more before the}^ are finally disposed of, but I may mention as the 

 most important item forty-seven volumes of the " American Jour- 

 nal of Science." This journal contains manj' valuable papers on 

 botany by the late Professor Gray and other eminent botanists. 

 The whole set comprises one hundred and thirty-eight volumes, a 

 greater number than in any other set in the Library, and with 

 those above mentioned, and some obtained from other sources, 

 the set wants onl}^ twelve volumes (from the 5th to the 16th, 

 inclusive, of the first series) to make it complete, and we are not 

 without hopes of obtaining them. The Hovey gift has also ena- 

 bled us to perfect our set of the " Country Gentleman," and that 

 of the " American Agriculturist." As intimated above, it has 

 been impossible to make the usual record in detail of this gift, and 

 consequently only a few are mentioned in the list of Library 

 Accessions for the present year, but it is hoped to do this as they 

 are hereafter classified and given permanent places on our shelves. 



