170 LETTER-FILES. OF S. W. JOHNSON 



Two years later this same paper on soil exhaustion 

 was reprinted in the Report of the Michigan Board of 

 Agriculture — ''for the information of farmers in our 

 state." Its numerous previous republications, either 

 in whole or in part, had by this time made it public 

 property — Mr. Goodale, secretary of the Maine Board 

 of Agriculture, said in a letter dated August 24, 1872 : 



I have just been looking over your lectures given at Daniel- 

 sonville and being impressed anew with their great value I 

 write now especially to ask if you would be willing for me 

 to reprint them in my next report — and I would like to pre- 

 face them with a notice of ' ' How Crops Grow ' ' and ' ' Feed, ' ' 

 commending them to a place in every farmer's library. The 

 lectures would so effectually justify, endorse and enforce the 

 commendation. 



In May 1873, Professor Johnson, as chemist to the 

 State Board of Agriculture, made his report on "Ash 

 of Tobacco." This report was the beginning of years 

 of work and experiment of the greatest value to the 

 tobacco-growing industry of Connecticut. The inves- 

 tigation then begun has since been prosecuted by the 

 Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, and in 

 view of the permanent importance of this work still 

 going on, it is curious to see reflected in a letter of the 

 time how^ lightly it was then regarded by the interests 

 it most benefited and how precarious was the very 

 existence of the Board of Agriculture, whose modest 

 appropriation alone made possible the execution of 

 the analyses involved in the research. Professor 

 Johnson's private assistant of the year before wrote, 

 in 1874, inquiring as to the continuance of this work, 

 as follows: 



