fully, taking out infected stalks, and destroying the germs by burning. This followed up year after year will reduce the loss from this source to a small margin.

Much of the "fuss and feathers" attendant upon testing seed corn may be avoided by proper selection and care of seed. For size and shape of ear and grain the selection can be made as readily when picking out the seed at gathering time as at planting time the next spring. A plot or side of the field may well be set aside from which to select seed. If it be impossible to give the entire field all the attention it should have, this part, at least, should be attended to carefully. Emasculate every barren stalk before it sheds any pollen, remove all smutty growths, no matter on what part of the stalk it occurs, let no weak stalk remain, this followed up year after year will reduce the loss from barrenness, want of vitality and smut, besides adding to the satisfaction of handling the crop.

There is another point in corn growing that is worthy of attention. Don't depend upon getting a first-class crop of corn from seed brought from a distance. Corn to do its best must be acclimated, must become a resident of the place, must have a little time to become acquainted with the soil as well as used to the atmospheric changes of the particu lar locality before it will do its best. Breeding seed corn is receiving great attention in some localities and it certainly promises well for America's most important cereal. Good seed well cared for from gathering to seeding time will start the crop toward a satisfactory harvest.

The Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture finds in its preliminary estimate of the average yield per acre 26.2 bushels. Compare this with one hundred bushels and more, which is possible, and we realize that a majority of corn growers must be raising very poor corn.

Columbus, on landing upon the soil of the Western Hemisphereif we credit history-found corn growing with all the chief characteristics that mark it today, the leading if not the only cereal known to the dusky aborigines. Selection, improved cultivation and care has doubtless increased varieties as well as yield to some extent. The Department further gives us a comparison of yields, showing a little advance; 26.2 bushels in 1908, 25.9 bushels in 1907, 25.6 bushels for last ten years. Verily, improvement is slow, but we of Pennsyl vania can congratulate ourselves upon producing more corn per acre than the great corn states of the Middle West-that we hear so much about as being the greatest corn field in the world, with what they some years ago boastingly claimed as their inexhaustible soils where they burned up and threw manures into the creek, in order to be rid of them. They, too, have come to realize the truth of Poor Richard's maxim-"Always taking out of the meal tub and never putting in will reach the bottom." Well illustrated in the course of the Western corn crop, for while they have not reached the bottom entirely thanks to the ordering of Divine Providence-which makes it impossible to entirely exhaust the soil, nevertheless, the average yield is below the point of profitable production.

Nothwithstanding corn has been introduced wherever civilization has extended, nowhere has it found a more congenial soil than in the land of its nativity. About seventy-five per cent. of the world's production is credited to this country. The ingenuity of our people have

found many ways to utilize the crop. In the Paris Exposition of 1900, there was exhibited a museum case containing more than one hundred separate commercial products manufactured from corn, and development in this direction still continues. Our breakfast food manufacturers in their eagerness to get something new on the market do not stop at breakfast, but produce dinner and supper foods as well. It is fitting that corn should occupy the center of the stage in this country. It is Native American.

Wheat.

Unlike corn, wheat it not a native American grain. But it has been found to be wonderfully well adapted to our soil and climate, and the only reason why the yield falls below that of some of the older European countries, is the want of care in preparation, fertilization and cultivation. Like corn, the form and filling out of the ear has much to do with the yield. Ears of wheat pointed at both ends are not usually large producers of uniformly plump kernels, like the pointed ear of corn, the grains are quite apt to be small at the tip. One average yield is entirely too small, due primarily to want of care in selecting and caring for seed and carelessness or ignorance in preparing and fertilizing the seed bed. Wheat rapidly exhausts the soil of elements necessary for its best development. It is much more impatient than corn of improper treatment. Corn may continue to yield fair crops for several years from the same piece of ground, but wheat soon tires and must have more care in rotation, preparation of soil and more careful and intelligent management. Wheat is important from a commercial point of view. It readily lends itself to transportation, either as grain flour or finished products. The wheat and flour of this country have been a potent factor for years in relieving distress and saving lives in other lands.

Oats.

Of oats, the other cereal chosen to have attention briefly in this report, we can say that it seems to be less adapted to our soil and climate than either wheat or corn. Yet fitting into a rotation as it does, well adapted to our conditions and again its great value as a feed grain, it being a better balanced ration for the horse than any other grain we produce, makes it important. Being better adapted to the colder North countries seems to require that we renew its vitality frequently by getting seed from the more congenial climes.

With a paragraph emphasizing the need of bringing about better conditions of producing and caring for the best possible seed and its dissemination, we will close this report.

We hear much of technical schools and the importance of special training is certainly not overestimated. At this time when the school question is so prominently before us, may we not enter a plea for more specific Agricultural Education in rural schools.

Since the advent of the Township High School we hear something of teaching agriculture. Town schools are searching about for vacant lots to utilize in imparting instruction practically in Nature Study, the growth of plants. They want to teach agriculture.

Now, when this school question is finally threshed out, may we not have provision for a farm school, wherever in the rural districts sufficient pupils can be got together to warrant a veritable farm school with farm and stock and all the paraphernalia necessary to make intelligible, not only the theory but the practice as well, where the boys and girls can get hold with their hands of all the jobs that must be done about the farm and household. Not as depicted by Charles Dickens in his satire upon doings in his day. He depicted it in this way, using a somewhat vulgar setting:

"Oh mother may I go out to swim?
Why yes, my dearest daughter:

But hang your clothes on the hickory limb,
And don't go near the water."

The propagation and dissemination of improved varieties, with proper care, would add much to the production of every township. Let the school farm take up this work under competent instructionlet it be an experiment station-a dissemination of information of all kinds valuable to the neighborhood-theory and practice, not theory alone. Let us of the rural districts push for better things in the country. We have been going to town too long for education. They teach in the town the arts of the town, let us teach in the country the arts that are appropriate to the country.

During the reading of this paper, Mr. Sexton, the third VicePresident, took the Chair.

The CHAIRMAN: You have heard the reading of the report. What action do you take?

A motion was duly made, seconded and carried that it be received and placed on file for publication with the proceedings of the Board.

The SECRETARY: Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me the Governor is likely to have a very busy week, and I was in conversation with him yesterday and he said that he would like to come in to attend the meetings of the Board as much as possible, and in order that he may have the opportunity of selecting the time when he can come, I suggest that we, perhaps, had better appoint a committee to wait on him now, and I therefore move that a committee be appointed to wait upon the Governor and tell him we are in session and ask him to meet with us when he can.

The motion was seconded, put and carried.

The CHAIRMAN: My attention has been called to the fact that we have a resolution passed by the Board last year or year before, that these reports of committees not only be read, but they must not exceed fifteen minutes, so that we will have to hold you pretty strict to that in order to get over the program this morning.

I will appoint on the committee to wait on the Governor and invite him to our sessions, Dr. Schaeffer, Mr. Kahler and Mr. Hutchison.

DR. SCHAEFFER: I suggest that you appoint someone else. I am just on my way to another part of the building to look after some other matters.

The CHAIRMAN: It might be well for you to take some of our members over and introduce them.

MR. HUTCHISON: You had better appoint someone in my place as I will have to present my report very shortly. Just appoint one of the other brothers; Brother Shoemaker, here would be a good one.

The CHAIRMAN: It ought not to take long to call upon the Governor. However, we will appoint Mr. Shoemaker in your stead. The CHAIRMAN: The next thing on the program is the Report of the Committee on Dairy and Dairy Products, Dr. M. E. Conard, Chairman, Westgrove, Pa. Is Dr. Conard present?

The SECRETARY: I have not seen him yet.

The CHAIRMAN: The next on the program is the Report of the Committee on Feeding Stuffs, George G. Hutchison, Warrior's Mark, Pa.

Mr. Hutchison, thereupon, read his report as follows:

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEEDING STUFFS.

By G. G. HUTCHISON, Warriors Mark, Pa.

To the Members of the State Board of Agriculture:-As your representative and specialist under the Feeding Stuffs Control of the Department of Agriculture, I beg leave to make the following report of our work for the year that has just closed:

This has been a very busy year in our Bureau. As stated to you a year ago at your meeting, the Feeding Stuffs Law was then before the Court of Lehigh county and was being tested on its constitutionality on the question of the preference given to the millers of Pennsylvania in regard to the sale of bran and middlings at the place of manufacture. Judge Bechtel decided that that portion of the law

was unconstitutional.

Anticipating this decision, we prepared a new Feeding Stuffs Law and eliminated that clause that referred to the sale of bran and middlings where manufactured. This law is now upon the statute books and it is the one which we are working under at this time. You have all been furnished with copies of it and are no doubt familiar with its requirements.

The New Law.

The new law, as it passed the House, was a very drastic measure, in some particulars, as it prohibited the mixing of oat hulls, corn cobs, weed seeds, rice hulls, peanut hulls and similar substances with any feed that was sold or offered for sale in Pennsylvania. The bill passed the House as originally prepared, but when it came to the Senate, the manufacturers of feeds that used oat hulls and corn cobs as a mixture with their feeds, requesting a hearing, and after a number of hearings, in which both sides were represented, the bill

was finally passed, allowing the mixing of oat hulls with feed, but not in an amount to exceed nine per centum of fiber. The bill also allows the mixing of corn cob with corn products, but not in amount to exceed nine per centum of fiber and they cannot be mixed with any other feed and sold. It also allows the grinding of whole corn without being shelled or with other grains.

The law also places bran and middlings under the same heading as whole grains. Whole grains can be ground either separately or mixed together and do not need to have the percentage of protein, fat or fiber. Bran and middlings can also be sold when pure without the placing of the analysis on same. There has been a great deal of controversy in regard to the placing of analysis on brans. They vary from two to three per cent. in protein in some samples. This caused a great deal of hardship and controversy among the dealers.

The feature in the new law that will be the greatest benefit to the farmers and feeders of domestic animals in Pennsylvania, is the one that prohibits the mixing of weed seeds, rice hulls and peanut hulls with feeds. Weed seeds 'was one of the mixtures that was used very extensively by the manufacturers of molasses feeds according to our reports and those of Vermont and Maine Experiment Stations. These seeds were not digestible except when fed to chickens or sheep; hence, all that were fed to other domestic animals were not assimilated and were worthless. As soon as the law was put into effect, which was the first of August, 1909, the majority of the manufacturers of molasses feeds stopped mixing weed seeds with other feeds that were shipped into Pennsylvania. They were known to the trade as wheat screenings, and this was misleading. Wheat screenings, as recognized by the Department, are small grains of wheat or broken grains of wheat, not weed seeds. So much for the adulterants.

By-Products.

Now comes a vital question in regard to feeds, and that is the by-products that are found upon the markets of our State. These by-products are very valuable and there is a great demand for them among our feeders. I wish to state that I am not opposed to the feeds that are manufactured from the by-products if they are sold for what they are and sold for the amount of protein and fat which they contain, and a true statement giving the amount of fibre and also their composition. This gives the purchaser plain notice of what he is buying. The fibre-content of feed has a great deal to do with the availability of the protein-contents, and feeders should educate themselves to understand that a feed which is high in fibre is not as digestible a feed as one which is low in fibre; or in other words a feed which is high in fibre has not as much of its protein available as one that is low in fibre.

For example, take alfalfa meal and compare it with wheat bran. We find the analysis of alfalfa meal to run about 15 to 16 per cent. protein, from 1 to 3 per cent. fat and from 28 to 33 per cent. fiber. We find wheat bran to run from 15 to 16 per cent. protein, 5 per cent. fat and 10 per cent. fiber. Taking the fibre-contents of these materials, you will find that when one-third of the protein in the alfalfa meal is fiber, also one-third of the fat is in the fiber-content, but taking the