AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 149 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



17. Answering of many letters about insects, plants, fungi- 

 cides, insecticides, spraying and spraying apparatus. 



18. Article on spraying and spraying apparatus for this report- 

 That portion of the work mentioned above, which is completed 



and is of enough importance, is considered below. When compar- 

 ing the work of this Station in Botany and Entomology with that 

 of others, it should be remembered that the Botanist and Ento- 

 mologist gives but one-third of his time to Station duties. Mr. F. 

 P. Briggs as Assistant, has rendered efficient service in conducting 

 germination tests, looking after the grass plots, and collecting for 

 the herbarium. Correspondence regarding plants and insects, 

 especially injurious fungi and insects, is solicited. Directions for 

 sending specimens may be found in Station Report, 1888, p. 194, 

 or in Maine Agricultural Report, 1888, p. 158. I desire to thank 

 the citizens of the State for the aid they have given me in the 

 prosecution of my work, and also to thank the Director and 

 other Station officers for their co-operation and encouragement. 



GERMINATION EXPERIMENTS. 



The germination experiments conducted the past season were a 

 continuation of those performed and reported in 1888 They 

 were conducted by Mr. F. P. Briggs in the same manner and with 

 the same apparatus described in the Annual Report for 1888, p. 

 102. They were undertaken for two reasons : to test commission 

 seeds, offered for sale in Maine, that were not examined in 1888 ; 

 and to investigate a complaint from Aroostook County that dealers 

 in that section were selling poor seeds. 



For the first purpose we selected seeds put up by J. B. Rice, 

 Cambridge, N. Y. ; E. W. Lyman, Springfield, Mass. ; A. H. Dun- 

 lap & Sons, Nashua, N.H. ; and Lewis Atwood, Winterport, Me., 

 and offered for sale on Commission in Orono, Me. The detailed 

 results of these tests are shown in the general table, numbers 151 

 to 190 inclusive. Below is given a special table showing the 

 seeds tested, the per cent, of each kind that germinated and 

 the average. 



