1900.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 38. 5 



purity, presenting less difficulties in manufacture, from the 

 sulfate. In sweet and field corn there was no perceptible 

 difierence in product, quality or food value, but with cab- 

 bages the yield was much greater from the use of the sulfate. 

 In the tests of potatoes the Beauty of Hebron and Early 

 Rose still rank in 94 varieties among the most productive 

 sorts, either for early or late harvests. In feeding poultry 

 a narrow i". a wide ration for egg-production, the results 

 seemed to be largely in favor of the wide ration, richer in 

 corn meal and corn, in the following particulars : (a) lower 

 cost of feed, {b) a gain of 23 to 91 per cent, more eggs, 

 (c) a lower cost per egg, (d) a greater increase in weight 

 and (e) a much earlier moult. 



In the meteorological division, besides the usual observa- 

 tion of weather phenomena, the means of the various weather 

 elements for the last ten years have been tabulated, and 

 normal conditions for the period deduced. Observations 

 relating to soil temperature and moisture by electrical 

 methods have been continued, and results from the corn- 

 growing season of the current year have ])een worked out 

 to serve as basis for comparison in succeeding years. 



In the horticultural division, experiments have been carried 

 on in the use of hydrocyanic acid gas under glass as an in- 

 secticide, but definite results have not yet been secured. 



In the entomological division, the card catalogue to the 

 literature of North American insects now numbers over 

 forty thousand. The inspection of nurseries for the San 

 Jose scale and the granting of authorized certificates has 

 been added to the work of the division ; bulletins on the 

 coccid genera Chionaspis and Ilemichionaspis and the grass 

 thrips have been issued, and one on the clover-head beetle 

 and a monograph of the Pyralid86 are ready for publication. 

 The composition of Raupenleim, formerly imported at a 

 high price, has been determined, and it can now be made at 

 a trifling cost. 



In the botanical division, interesting observations have 

 been made on the distribution of tlic asparagus rust in 

 Massachusetts and the relation existing between its out- 

 breaks and the rainfall, together with the physical proper- 

 ties of tilt' soil. There is a niarkod susceptibility of [)lants 



