Arrangements have been completed with a number of scientific experts for the preparation of sets of photographs from which to prepare lantern slides illustrative of important agricultural subjects. Each set of photographs is to be accompanied by a syllabus containing explanations of each slide and provided with full references to the literature of the subject. A few sets of slides have now been prepared and the demand for them among institute lecturers has been such as to justify this action.

Correspondence has been opened with representatives of foreign nations to secure information regarding methods of promoting agriculture in those countries. Data have also been received from the principal steam railway systems of the United States and Canada showing the steps they have taken to promote agricultural interests in the sections through which they run. The institute specialist has visited during the year 23 States and 1 Territory for the purpose of attending conventions of agricultural representatives, and has delivered before these conventions 29 addresses.

THE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND STATIONS.

The eighteenth annual convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations was held at Des Moines, Iowa, November 1-3, 1904. This was the first meeting under the new constitution, which reduces the number of sections from five to two, and the advantage of the new plan was very marked in enabling the delegates to follow each discussion more closely and in concentrating the deliberation upon questions relating to the administration of the colleges and stations, their general management, and methods of work.

The papers and discussions at this convention were concerned mainly with (1) the extension features of agricultural education, including the teaching of elementary agriculture in the public schools, upon which the standing committee on methods of teaching agriculture presented a report; (2) improvement of plants and animals; and (3) the amount of teaching desirable for station workers to do. A brief account of the Des Moines meeting is given on page 256.

THE OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

The work of the Office of Experiment Stations has been larger in amount and more varied in character than ever before. It has included the supervision of station expenditures, necessitating visits by inspectors to every experiment station in the United States; advisory relations with the stations involving numerous conferences and a large amount of correspondence with station officers; the collection.

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and dissemination of information regarding the progress of agricultural education and research throughout the world by means of technical and popular periodicals, bulletins, and circulars; the management of experiment stations in Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico; special investigations on the nutrition of man and on irrigation and drainage, conducted largely in cooperation with experiment stations, educational institutions, and other agencies in different States and Territories; the promotion of the interests of farmers' institutes throughout the United States, and the preparation of two exhibits, illustrating the work of the Office, for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis.

The recent work of the Office in relation to agricultural education has been directed mainly toward the better classification and the extension of courses in agricultural engineering and agricultural economics, and the promotion of secondary and elementary instruction in agriculture. During the year the claims of some phases of agricultural instruction to a place in the common school courses were presented in addresses to not less than 4,000 teachers and school officers, and by means of publications to a much larger number. Much progress has been made also in bringing the Department into more helpful relations with the farmers' institute movement in the United States, as a result of which the ways in which the Department can aid this movement have been more clearly defined.

The original investigations of the Office have been increased not only by the extension of the work already in hand, but also by the addition of investigations in drainage, which are widespread in their application, both in the humid regions of the East and in the irrigated regions west of the Mississippi.

The preparation of the two exhibits in cooperation with the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and of a number of special publications to be used in connection with these exhibits, put heavy additional labor upon nearly every member of the Office staff, but the exhibits were of great value in giving publicity to the work of the Office in relation to agricultural education and research. A brief account of the general business of the Office will be found on page 49, and details of its operations are given in other portions of this report.

EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN ALASKA, HAWAII, AND PORTO RICO.

In Alaska experiment stations were maintained at Sitka, Kenai, Rampart, and Copper Center, and cooperative experiments were conducted on Wood Island. The results of the year tended to confirm the possibility of growing hardy vegetables in nearly all parts of the Territory south of the Arctic Circle, and hardy cereals and an abun

dance of forage for live stock in many localities. There is also increasing evidence of the feasibility and desirability of establishing animal industry in the Territory.

In Hawaii considerable progress has been made in improving the facilities for station work and in developing new work, especially with bananas, tobacco, grasses and forage plants, and soils. Studies have been made of fungus diseases and certain insect pests of coffee, sugar cane, and other economic plants, and a bulletin has been published on the leaf hopper of sugar cane.

The staff of the Porto Rico Station has begun the investigation and introduction of new and improved varieties of horticultural products, the promotion of improved cultural methods, the cultivation and improvement of coffee, and the study of life histories of injurious fungi and insects and means for their repression. A study of methods of combating the coffee-leaf miner has resulted in the discovery of an effective parasite which, it is believed, by careful propagation and distribution, will aid very materially in checking the ravages of this most serious enemy to coffee cultivation. Much progress has been made in draining the farm, installing an experimental irrigation system, and otherwise preparing the land for experimentation.

NUTRITION INVESTIGATIONS.

During the last fiscal year the inquiry regarding food and nutrition of man, conducted under the auspices of this Office, has been continued on much the same lines as in the previous years, the investigations as heretofore having been under the immediate charge of Prof. W. O. Atwater. Attention has been devoted mainly to the study of physiology, hygiene, and the economics of nutrition, the chief object of the inquiry being to discover the fundamental laws of nutrition and their economical and sociological application to the health and well-being of mankind. Attention has been paid more particularly to cooking experiments, dietary studies, digestion experiments, and investigations with the respiration calorimeter on the transformations of matter and energy in the human body.

In addition to the experimental work a large amount of editorial work is required in the calculation of the results of experiments, the preparation of experimental data for publication in a technical and popular form, and in other ways.

The method of cooperation by which the work of investigation has been distributed among various educational, scientific, and similar institutions in the United States has, as hitherto, given most excellent results and a large amount of investigation has been carried on. In a considerable measure this has been made possible by the generous support of the cooperating institutions which have contributed in

some cases money, and in practically all cases the use of laboratories, apparatus, libraries, the advice and counsel of skilled experts, and similar assistance. Had funds been available it would have been possible to extend considerably the cooperative investigations, as other institutions have expressed a readiness to join in such enterprises provided a comparatively small amount could be allotted to them. However, with the funds at present available it was not found possible to extend the work beyond its present limitations.

THE WORK AT DIFFERENT PLACES.

In addition to editorial work, the Washington office has had the general supervision of the plans and expenditures for the nutrition investigations. Bibliographical and other data have been collected; the current literature of the subject of nutrition has been reviewed, and abstracts made partly for use in the Experiment Station Record and partly for other purposes in connection with the inquiry, as seemed desirable. The growth of interest in the nutrition investigations is shown by the constantly increasing corespondence which, as well as the distribution of publications, is attended to from the Washington office.

In connection with the Department of the Interior, an extended series of dietary studies was made at the Government Hospital for the Insane, and the results were prepared for publication in bulletin form.

The nutrition investigations carried on at the University of Cali-fornia by Prof. M. E. Jaffa and his associates during the past year form part of a series intended to cover two years, the digestibility of fruits and nuts and their value as part of a mixed diet being the general subject under investigation. The nutritive value of a diet consisting almost entirely of fruits and vegetables was also studied. Thirty-five digestion experiments and four dietary studies have been made.

Fruit and nuts may be made a very useful part of the diet. Aside from the work undertaken at the University of California comparatively little attention has been paid to the study of the nutritive value of these foods. California furnishes such an abundant variety of both fruits and nuts that the conditions are very favorable for the investigations, and it is believed that the inquiry now in progress will demonstrate the dietetic value of fruits and nuts and lead to their more general and intelligent use in American households. The wise use of fruits, fresh and preserved, as a part of the diet rather than as food accessories would, it seems fair to say, add to the attractiveness and wholesomeness of the diet, and would probably be of benefit also from the standpoint of economy.

The work at Middletown, Conn., in which Wesleyan University, the State of Connecticut, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington cooperated with this Department, was conducted under the direction of Prof. W. O. Atwater, chief of nutrition investigations, and has included the planning and direct supervision of the cooperative investigations throughout the country; carrying out of special studies with the bomb and respiration calorimeters; improvements in apparatus and methods of inquiry; editorial work, including calculation and verification of data and preparation of results for publication; compilation of results of nutrition investigations in this and other countries, and correspondence and other administrative work.

In connection with the respiration calorimeter investigations a number of improvements in apparatus have been introduced, one of the most valuable being a device by which the subject can weigh himself while in the respiration chamber, the weighings being accurate, within 2 or 3 grams. The method is also adapted to weighing the absorber system inside the chamber with great accuracy. The actual experimental work has included eleven experiments with three different subjects, covering a period of twenty days within the apparatus. In one experiment the subject remained in the apparatus thirteen days and fourteen nights. The experimental conditions have varied from fasting and extreme quiet to abundant diet and unusually hard work, and furnish valuable data regarding the comparative value of different nutrients and the amounts of protein and energy required for the production of different amounts of work.

In addition to the complete metabolism experiments a number of experiments of about twelve hours each were made to study the amounts of heat radiated from the body under different conditions of lying, sitting, standing, or operating the bicycle ergometer, such experiments having to do with the study of the efficiency of the human body as a machine, its energy requirements, and the effect of various circumstances on the energy output.

In connection with the experiments considerable time has been devoted to a study of the method of partial drying of samples of food, etc., in vacuo for analysis, and the results obtained indicate that the method as followed is much more satisfactory than drying samples by heat as in the more common method.

Twenty-five experiments have also been carried on during the year with different subjects to secure data regarding the digestibility of cereal breakfast foods, fish, and poultry.

At the University of Illinois Prof. H. S. Grindley and his associates have continued the investigations of the losses and chemical changes resulting from cooking meat and the influence of different methods of cooking upon its nutritive value, fifty-eight experiments having been made. The work has been carried on under very favor