New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 15 
The showing for the inspection of 1907-1908 is very much better 
than that from 1906-1907. In the former year 69 samples were 
found to be materially below guarantee, which is practically two and 
one-half times as many as those reported deficient in this bulletin. 
In addition to the analyses required for determining whether the 
composition of the samples corresponds with the guarantees, special 
examinations were made of various compounded feeds to discover 
the nature of the ingredients in the mixtures. Fifty feeds were so 
examined and in a large majority of cases the presence of inferior 
materials was clearly evident. The facts were stated in Bulletin 
303 essentially as follows: 
(1) Nearly all of the compounded feeds examined contain either 
oat hulls greatly in excess of what belong to the ground oats ean 
or ground corn cobs. 
(2) The molasses feeds, of which there were twelve brands ex- 
amined, nearly all contained a great variety of weed seeds, some of 
which are noxious weeds such as mustard, charlock, wild carrot and 
English plantain (narrow leaved plantain, buckhorn). Germination 
tests show that in several cases these seeds have not lost the power 
of germination. or instance, in one sample 50 per ct. of the 
English plantain seed germinated. It is beyond question possible 
for these seeds to reach the soil without having lost their germinat- 
ing power. Moreover, these weed seeds have an unknown nutritive 
value, and unquestionably many of them having highly resistant 
coatings pass through the animals undigested. These seeds are, 
therefore, not only a menace to the land but to the productiveness 
of the animals that are being fed these molasses feeds on the as- 
sumption that they take the place of pure, sound farm grains or of 
other standard feeding stuffs. 
(3) The gluten feeds are found in many instances to contain 
artificial coloring matter and to have considerable free acid, con- 
ditions that are not commendable. 
DEPARTMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY. 
Inoculation as a factor in growing alfalfa. The need of inocula- 
tion was tested in 67 fields distributed among 33 counties of this 
State. The bacteria, Ps. radicicola, which enable alfalfa to obtain 
nitrogen from the air were present, at least in small numbers, in 
practically all of the 67 experimental fields. However, it was only 
in one-third of the fields that they were present in sufficient numbers 
