This is to certify that we, the undersigned, Auditors of the Public Accounts, appointed by the State of Connecticut, have examined the accounts of J. P. Barstow, Treasurer of the Storrs Agricultural School, and find that the sum of seven thousand five hundred and one dollars and forty-three cents has been expended for the Experiment Station.

(Signed,)

FRANK P. RODGERS,)
JOHN E. SCANLAN,

HARTFORD, October 19, 1888.

Auditors of

Public Accounts.

TABULAR STATEMENT OF THE FOREGOING EXPENDITURES.

Storrs School Agricultural Experiment Station of Connecticut,
In account with the United States Treasury Department.

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR.

The following is a report of as much of the work of the Station as can be conveniently described at this date, January 1, 1889. It includes accounts of

1. Experiments on the effects of tillage upon soil moisture. Experiments of this sort go far towards explaining why hoeing and cultivating help crops to withstand drouth.

2. Investigations on the value of roots of plants as manure. These show the large manurial value of roots and stubble, and with other like investigations help to explain what crops leave the most fertilizing material for the use of succeeding crops, and one of the advantages of rotation.

3. Accounts of meteorological observations made at the station and by farmers in various parts of the State in con nection with field experiments.

4. Report of co-operative field experiments with fertilizers by the station, and by farmers on their own farms in different parts of the State, for the purpose of testing the needs of soils and plants, and the most economical ways of supplying them. As an important part of this work is the chemical analysis of the products, which are to be made during the winter, the full results cannot be reported here, but must be reserved for later publication.

5.

Grasses and forage plants grown by the Station in its Grass and Forage Garden and elsewhere. With this is a paper on the cow pea, for which the Station and the public are indebted to Prof. W. H. Brewer of Yale University.

Since October 1st, the Director has spent a large portion of the time in Washington in charge of the Office of Experiment Stations of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and has been able to exercise only a general supervision of the work of the station. He wishes, however, to express his appreciation of the care and thoroughness with which details have been carried out and reported by the gentlemen to whom they have been entrusted.

W. O. ATWATER, Director.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE EFFECTS OF TILLAGE ON SOIL MOISTURE.

The Station has undertaken, on the farm of the School at Mansfield, a series of experiments on the evaporation of soil moisture, especially as affected by surface tillage. They were planned by Prof. C. S. Phelps, Vice-Director of the Station, and carried out under his immediate supervision. The experiments thus far made have revealed no new principles indeed, they are still crude and only tentative, and will need various modifications in the future but they confirm the results of other experiments in explaining the value of surface tillage.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIMENTS.

The details of the experiments are as follows:

Eight cans made of galvanized iron, each thirty inches deep and ten inches in diameter, were used for holding the soil. A half-inch pipe connecting with the interior was soldered on the outside of the can two inches above the bottom. By means of a rubber tube extending from the pipe to the top of the can weighed quantities of water were added when desired. In the soil as it naturally lies, the water has free passage downwards and upwards, but the bottoms of the cans cut off communication between the soil in them and that in the earth in which they stand. Since, therefore, no water could come into them from below to make up for that which was evaporated, this means was taken to supply water in time of drouth. Boxes of one and one-half inch chestnut plank, without bottoms, of the same height as the cans and large enough to hold them, were sunk into the earth in the forage garden, so that the tops were even with the surface of the ground. The cans of soil were kept in these boxes and removed only for weighing. The surface of the soil within the cans was at the same level as that of the ground outside. On the top of each can a thin cylinder of