ft.—:29b,

19

of 1915 and continued as an assured success was the publication for particular months pf Seasonable Hints to Farmers. This was an informative bulletin of a dozen pages or so giving timely hints on live-stock in the matter of feeding and so on, instructions about poultry, clover and timothy, hoed crops, grain, Indian corn, forage plants, potato-growing, lucerne, loose smut in wheat and barley, blights and cankers of fruit-trees, summer fallow and weed-control, general hints about the orchard, the apiary, tobacco-culture, and the farm water-supply. The Dominion Experimental Farm and Station System in Canada. The purpose is to cover as thoroughly its possible all those branches of agriculture adaptable to its varied, soils and climatic conditions. While the chief object, of the work at the Central Experimental Farm is to obtain by repeated experiments useful data on the seeding, cultivation, and harvesting of farm crops, on the breeding, feeding, and housing of various classes of livestock, ami on the conversion of milk into other marketable products, the management of the whole is, as far as possible, conducted for profit, all operations being carried on after the most approved practical methods and a record of cost in each case kept. During the four days of my visit to the Central Experimental Farm, through the courtesy of Mr. Grisdale, the Director of Dominion Experimental Farms, 1 had an opportunity of meeting the chief officers of the respective divisions and obtaining front them valuable information in respect to their several activities. Ontario Agricultural College and Experimental Farm, Cuelph. This institution is situated approximately in latitude 43J,° N., about forty miles wesl from the City of Toronto, lite college was established forty years ago. It holds a very high position as an agricultural instructional institution throughout, America, ami also a high reputation throughout other countries of the world, for its efficient teaching of agriculture in all its branches, drawing many students annually from countries outside of Canada. The regular college course leading to the degree of U.S.A. covers a period of four years. During 1914 the attendance in all departments at the college and Macdonald Institute, Montreal, was 1,551. A. qualification desired for candidates at the college, but not, always insisted upon, is that they must have been brought up or worked on a farm for some years previously —at least two years. No town boys are admitted unless they have bad farm experience. Girls are admitted to learn domestic economy. As there are many farmers and farmers' sons who cannot spare the time to take the college course, and others who might find the time but have not the means to do so, to meet such cases the college has supplemented the regular work by adding short courses, which are largely taken advantage of. The President of the College, Dr. G. C. Creeluitin, in his annual report for 1914, in making an announcement in regard to short courses, says that "better men are wanted to manage our cheese-factories and creameries; to give instruction to our cheese and butter makers; to judge the live-stock and farm-produce at our fall fairs; to grasp the opportunities in fruitgrowing and beekeeping; and the boys and girls of the farm would be benefited by a better knowledge of the poultry industry." The courses are offered for the purposes above indicated. The Department of Agriculture in 1911 had offered as scholarships in their acre profit and pig-rearing competition a two-weeks course at the college. Sixty-eight of these young men, successful competitors who through these competitions won distinction in Canadian agriculture, joined these short-course classes. Four hundred and eighty-five attended these short courses in 1914. An outline of the short-course system is given further on in this report. The campus or grounds on which the" college buildings are erected are extensive and beautifully laid out, and, as with like institutions both in the United. States and Canada, these grounds are not fenced but are open to the public at all times. The area of land attached to the college is about 700 acres. 'The President of the College, Dr. G. C. Creelnian, to whom 1 had a letter of introduction, showed me over the college buildings, ami with Mr. C. A. Zavitz, Professor of Field Husbandry and Director of Field Experiments, very courteously took me around the most interesting portions of the farm and gave me every facility to acquire such information as I desired in regard to field experimental work. lire experimental grounds at the Ontario Agricultural College, which are under the direction of Professor Zavitz, cover about 75 acres of land, which are tlivided into upwards of two thousand plots, and on which experiments are being conducted with varieties of grain, root, tuber, grass, clover, fodder, silage, anil other crops with artificial, green, and barnyard manures; with methods of cultivation, selection of seed, dates of seeding, mixtures of grains, pasture-grasses, <fee. In addition the Field Husbandry Department directs co-operative experiments on five thousand farms throughout the Province. The experimental grounds are on undulating country, and the soil is an average clay loam. The greater portion of the land is worked on a yoiir-ycars rotation, the rotation being —first, grain crops; second, cultivated crops; third, grain crops; and fourth, pasture. This is a special rotation well suited to-the experimental work as carried on at the college. About onefourth of the land is manured each year at the rate of 20 tons of farmyard manure per acre —thus most of the land'receives an application of farmyard manure once every four years. The manure is applied previous to the cultivated crops. No commercial fertilizers are used except in distinct fertilizer experiments, and these occupy a comparatively small area each year. One green crop has been ploughed under on each section of the grounds within the past sixteen years. The plots vary in size to suit the requirements of the different experiments, and the yields per acre