DOMINION EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 45 



DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY. 



The work of the Division of Chemistry naturally and 

 necessarily covers a very wide field. In a certain and very 

 important sense, farming — and especially modern and progres- 

 sive farming — is the putting into practice of the teaching of 

 agricultural chemistry. Farming, whether general or special, 

 is ever making an insistent call for the knowledge, the aid, which 

 chemistry alone can give, and so the chemist must be constantly 

 at work, analyzing and investigating, ascertaining the why and 

 the wherefore of things agricultural, confirming and supple- 

 menting by laboratory work the truths brought out by practical 

 field results. 



To understand the requirements of crops and animals is 

 the aim of the intelligent farmer. It thus comes about that 

 soils must be studied to learn their qualities and deficiencies; 

 apart from climatic influences, the productiveness of soils very 

 largely depends upon their physical character and their ability 

 to furnish plant food in available forms. The effect on the soil 

 of the rotation of crops, of the growth of legumes, of continuous 

 grain growing, of fallowing and various cultural systems must be 

 studied from the chemical as well as from the field point of view 

 if we are to know how the land is to be handled most profitably 

 and its fertility maintained. 



In like manner, it might be shown that farm manures must 

 be critically studied and analyzed; that the naturally-occurring 

 minerals having a fertilizing value — mucks, marsh and river 

 muds, marls, seaweeds, etc., etc., found in many parts of the 

 Dominion, must be examined as to their agricultural worth; that 

 the special requirements of specific crops must be investigated, 

 that the nutritive qualities of our grasses and forage crops must 

 be determined and the feeding value of the cattle foods upon 

 our market ascertained in order that dairying and stock raising 

 may be profitably prosecuted; that much chemical work is 

 necessary for progress in butter and cheese making and that in 

 fruit growing the chemist's assistance must be enlisted to prepare 

 and control the various insecticides and fungicides now so neces- 

 sary for the production of first-class fruit. All these and many 

 other related investigations have been studied by the Chemical 

 Division since the establishment of the Experimental Farms in 

 1887, the results appearing in our annual reports and bulletins, 

 the larger number of which are still available for distribution. 

 At the outset, this work was entrusted to Mr. Frank T. Shutt, 

 M.A., F.I.C., who still continues, with a staff of expert assistants, 

 to direct and carry out these investigations. 



There is, therefore, at all times, a multiplicity of problems 

 that the Division is striving to solve. For the purpose of this 



