EXPERIMENTAL HORTICULTURE. 
447 
situate, and the total net annual income of all the experimental 
stations amounts to ^678,000. 
The Act under which these stations were established lays 
down on broad lines the experimental work that shall be under¬ 
taken ; but those responsible for their management have consider¬ 
able freedom in formulating their plans. The Act stipulates 
that the object and duty of the stations shall be to make research 
and experiments on the physiology of plants and animals, their 
diseases, and the remedies for them ; the chemical composition of 
useful plants; the comparative advantages of the rotation of crops; 
the acclimatisation of new varieties of plants and trees ; analyses 
of soil and water ; and in the use of fertilisers. 
Many points that have an important bearing upon the profit¬ 
able utilisation of the land have already been determined by 
systematic experiments. In some instances there has been a 
tendency to superficiality of treatment; but this is not surprising 
considering the unavoidable inexperience of some of those who 
were suddenly called upon to undertake duties which require 
trained scientific habits of both observation and expression. 
The condition imposed on each station of issuing four bulletins 
annually has probably been the cause of the publication of some 
few premature conclusions amongst the immense amount of 
interesting and useful information contained in the records of 
the stations. I might give many interesting details with regard 
to the experiments conducted at these stations; but it must 
suffice to state that the directors have been especially active in 
dealing with insect infestations and fungoid diseases of plant 
life, and that we are indebted to them for much of the informa¬ 
tion at our command relating to the remedies for insect and 
fungoid attacks. It is a matter of common knowledge that 
‘ London Purple ’ and ‘ Paris Green,’ two by-products of British 
manufactures, were brought largely into use in America for the 
destruction of caterpillars that feed upon the foliage of fruit trees, 
as the result of the investigations at these experimental stations, 
before the fruit growers in this country even knew of the 
existence of these two powerful remedies. On learning from the 
bulletins that Paris Green and London Purple were being used 
in America for the protection of fruit trees from the ravages of 
the caterpillars of the Winter and other moths, inquiries were 
made, and it was then discovered that American cultivators 
