48 
Keport of the Director of the 
The report of the First Assistant deals principally with the cereals, 
and represents much careful and painstaking work. It also gives in 
detail the results of trials in haymaking and with certain forage 
crops. 
The report of the Horticulturist presents some experiments upon the 
physical relations of soil; these, while unfinished and scarcely sufficient 
for use in extended generalization, are yet of great interest, and serve 
to throw some light upon many causes which underlie crop production. 
Some years back your Director became convinced that lysimeters, as at 
present constructed, gave but fallacious data regarding the conditions 
which exist in a free soil, as the apparatus was not adapted for such a 
use, and as the resulting figures of drainage and drainage composition, 
logically interpreted, contradicted the observed facts of experience 
when carried out to their appropriate consummation. Mr. Goff, in the 
apparatus described in his report, seems to have overcome some difficul- 
ties, and seems to have designed a method of estimating the degree of 
certain changes which operate in a given soil, and which are allied to 
those occurring in a natural soil. In his report also will be found a 
continuation of the descriptive work on cultivated vegetables and 
various other data of horticultural interest, not the least of which are 
the verifications of previous work upon the influence of heredity as 
modifying the potato crop. 
The report of the Assistant Horticulturist represents principally 
tabular data, which, taken in connection with our previous reports, will 
ultimately be found of service in studying the phenomenon of plant 
changes and influences of climate, especially when other data of like 
character are supplied by other institutions of similar character to our 
own, but working in a different region. His work on the potato scab 
seems to indicate that fungus is not directly accountable for this 
disease, but rather the alternations of checked and vigorous growth. 
The work of the Chemist deals principally with butter-fat problems, 
and the work here recorded will, doubtless, be pronounced of perma- 
nent value. The digestion trials of the Assistant Chemist serve to add 
confidence to the results of this method, previously reported, while the 
various other problems discussed in his report furnish information of 
much practical interest. 
There have been some changes in the personnel of the station staff 
during the calendar year. September 1, J. C. Arthur, the botanist, 
left to accept a professorship at Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind. 
October 1, our first assistant, Chas. S. Plumb, resigned to accept the 
professorship of agriculture at the University of Tennessee, Knox- 
ville. His abilities, training and natural qualifications for the duties 
