REPORT OF DIRECTOR.

To the Board of Control of the New Hampshire Agricul tural Experiment Station:

Gentlemen, — By the terms and conditions of an act of Congress approved March 2, 1887, the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts received, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1888, fifteen thousand dollars for the establishment and maintenance of an Agricultural Experiment Station, whose duty should be “to conduct original researches, or verify experiments on the physiology of plants and animals; the diseases to which they are severally subject, with the remedies for the same; the chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative cropping as pursued under a varying series of crops; the capacity of new plants or trees for acclimation; the analyses of soils and water; the chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial, with experiments designed to test their comparative effects on crops of different kinds; the adaptation and value of grasses and forage plants; the composition and digestibility of the different kinds of food for domestic animals; the scientific and economic questions involved in the production of butter and cheese; and such other researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States as may in each case be deemed advisable, having regard to the

varying conditions and needs of the respective States or Territories."

The work of organization was begun by the choice of a director, February 22, 1888. A building committee was also appointed at this time, consisting of Hon. S. B. Whittemore, C. W. Stone, Esq., and Prof. C. H. Pettee. The actual work of organization did not progress very far until the annual meeting of the trustees, April 17. At this meeting a board of control was chosen, and definite plans formulated for the erection of a new Experiment Station building for laboratory and offices.

At the first meeting of the board of control, April 18, a plan of work to be pursued was presented for consideration by the director, and with the constant encouragement and aid of the board of control and officers of the station this plan has been adhered to in the main.

GENERAL PLAN OF WORK.

I have seen no reason for doubting the wisdom of the determination to make dairy work a leading feature of the New Hampshire Station. With this plan in view, it was deemed advisable to stock the farm with four breeds of cows, and after considerable deliberation it was thought best to get four average animals of each of the following breeds, namely, Ayrshire, Holstein, Jersey, and Shorthorn. With these the study of various dairy problems are to be pursued. Among these a few may be mentioned: The physical characteristics of the milk from these breeds, its chemical composition, and adaptability for butter-making; the economy of each breed as machines for converting fodder into milk and butter. At the same time, the methods of handling milk, by various systems of cold deep setting, of shallow setting, and by the use of the centrifugal separator, are being tested.

All this has to do with the milk after it is produced, but

a wide field is opened in the production of the milk. The whole range of field and feeding work commences with this. The production of crops, the adaptation of new forage plants and the selection of the best varieties of plants already well tried; the perfecting of a "rotation" adapted to our soil, climate, and needs; the use of animal manures and of waste and mineral products as sources of plant-food; the determination of a rational composition for fertilizers for our own State; the study of the diseases that cause blight, smut, mildew, etc., also of the insects that prey upon farm crops; and another important and much discussed matter which is receiving careful study, namely, the effect of late and early cutting upon the feeding value of hay,— all of these subjects come under the head of field work, but when once the crops are harvested and stored the subject of feeding brings another field of labor. The compounding of rations, with due regard to cost and nutritive value, is a subject of prime importance to every farmer who has stock to feed. With our dairy work we are especially interested in milk-production; however, in the breeding and developing of calves, the study of rations for growing cattle, and especially for the development of milking qualities, is of no less importance.

Our work has been mainly in the line of determining the most profitable ration ; not necessarily the one that produces the largest yield, but the one that produces milk and butter at the lowest price per quart or pound. This is the true test; and in all the work planned we have never given way to the fatal error of trying to produce phenomenal yields per day, week, or month by the feeding of excessive rations, regardless of the cost of the product. This method is bad enough when resorted to by breeders to boom their animals, but it is totally inadmissible for an experiment station to deceive the public by any unnatural forcing process by which great yields are procured at still greater cost, and in any work that is carried out at this station, where practical

truths are sought, the economic side of the question will be given its full weight.

The influence of food upon the per cent of fat in milk is.. a matter in doubt, and as it has a direct bearing upon the every day work of the dairyman, this has received considerable attention. The various concentrated foods that are to be found in the market have been experimented with, and their feeding value determined; the relative merits of ensilage and hay have been tested, and the value of cured oats and rye investigated.

It must be remembered that in all such work time is required, and while we have a vast quantity of data, nevertheless it is believed to be the true policy to verify the first year's work before presenting the details of the tests of breeds. Other work, which depends less upon time, will be presented in this report, and while the period covered ends December 30, 1888, certain work that was incomplete at that time, but which has since been carried out, is herein recorded, because we believe it to be the intention of the law that the work done by the stations shall be placed before the farmers at as early a date as is consistent with accuracy.

In the appendices will be found the results of an experiment on the subject of fermenting bone with ashes. This work was done because of the numerous inquiries which have been addressed to me relating to this method of preparing raw bones for use. The details of the work were left to and carried out by Mr. E. H. Farrington. From the tabulated results it appears that this method is not a satisfactory one; for in all cases where ashes were used the whole of the soluble phosphoric acid was changed into either insoluble or reverted, while considerably over half of the "reverted" or citrate soluble phosphoric acid was made insoluble. This is a decided step in the wrong direction. Liebig conferred a lasting favor upon agriculture when he taught the use of sulphuric acid as a

means of rendering soluble the phosphoric acid in bone; but whoever encourages the use of ashes as a means of fermenting and preparing bone manure, not only cancels the good work of Liebig, but in place of it introduces a practice which is the very reverse, namely, rendering insoluble that which was available or soluble before fermentation took place. There is also a loss of nitrogen in the process, which makes the damage still greater.

It is true that ashes will change the mechanical condition of the bone by changing the animal matter into soap, leaving the mineral part to crumble; but the loss by reversion is too great to be offset by this improved mechanical condition, and we must still believe that the bonemill and sulphuric acid are superior to the action of caustic alkalies, like ashes, soda, potash, or lime.

The work done by Mr. A. H. Wood in the dairy department is of unquestionable value to every dairy farmer in the State, since it throws new light upon an old but very imperfectly understood process, namely, churning. Good dairymen have watched their skimmed-milk tank and have mourned over the fact that not all of the fat in the milk could be secured in the cream; but in most cases the buttermilk has been exempt from inspection and has gone loaded with butter-fat to gladden the swine, when it should have swelled the income from the sales of butter. The surprising results obtained in actual churning tests, with quantities of cream that throw the results beyond the domain of purely scientific investigation into that of practical dairying, must result in a vast saving, if the unquestionable influence of temperature at time of churning, as shown by Mr. Wood's work, is heeded by farmers and creamery-men.

At the outset, I called the attention of our chemists to the pressing need of some method of determining the richness of milk and cream. Creameries everywhere are blindly following the repeatedly disproved notion that an inch of cream from one source will make the same amount