34 MAINE AGRICULTURAI, EXPERIMENT STATION. 



and taking another bag returned to the tree. A man at the 

 tripod recorded the weight of the apples to the proper tree and 

 emptied the bag. 



By such methods there is practically no loss of time by the 

 pickers. It is, of course, necessary to have an extra man for 

 weighing and emptying the bags. One man can weigh, record 

 and empty the apples from nine or ten pickers. 



Such records continued for several years will give the Sta- 

 tion a very valuable set of data. In the first place it furnishes 

 the best measure of the success or failure of most experiments. 

 Thus a fertilizer or cultivation experiment must, if it is suc- 

 cessful, show an increased yield of fruit over that given by 

 the control trees. Estimates are not reliable especially in years 

 where the differences are small. Besides such estimates may 

 be unconsciously biased by the observer. 



Aside from this the data will furnish many interesting bio- 

 logical facts. Thus it will be of interest to know whether cer- 

 tain trees which yield well in a poor year will also yield well 

 in a good year. Are there trees which are uniformly better 

 yielders than other trees of the same age, size, etc. ? If so, is it 

 possible to propagate this high yielding quality by grafting or 

 budding? It is hoped that in the course of time these and 

 other questions may be solved from these data. 



Chemistry. 



The work of this department for the past year has been 

 devoted almost entirely to inspections and may be considered 

 under the following heads : 



Fertilizer Inspection, 



Feeding Stuff Inspection, 



Food and Drug Inspection, 



Fungicide and Insecticide Inspection, 



Creamery Glassware Inspection. 

 The work of the department has been interrupted somewhat 

 by quite extensive repairs on the laboratories. However, the 

 addition of two new rooms and considerable new chemical 

 apparatus will greatly facilitate the work in the future. 



