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DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY AND ENTOMOLOGY.

To the President of the State Agricultural College:

The following is a report of the instruction given in my department for the year 1874:

The Junior Class has recited to me during the entire year, in studies connected with my special department, and have made very satisfactory progress. Physiology occupied their attention for the first quarter of the term, and for three days each of the second quarter. For the first two weeks instruction was given in Osteology by lectures, afterwards, with the exception of a more full discussion of Anatomy when necessary, the course followed was nearly the same as that given in the text-book,-Dalton's Human Physiology, about half of the instruction being given by lectures. The progress by lectures was more rapid and quite as satisfactory.

The alternation of studies proved a hindrance, and next year the physiology will be completed before the entomology is commenced.

Much benefit was derived from charts, microscopic slides, and several dissections, which it is hoped to make more numerous hereafter.

The study of Entomology followed the course in Physiology. The instruction was entirely by lectures, although the students possessed Packard's "Guide to the Study of Insects" for reference.

The anatomy of insects was first studied, and that the students might become more familiar with the details of structure, each one dissected those parts of insects used in classifying, and put the result of those investigations on the black-board, in drawings, which were explained to the class.

The students were made familiar with the different sub-orders, while special care was taken to acquaint them with the habits, history, and transformations of our injurious and beneficial species, and the best means of protecting against the noxious ones.

A course of lectures was given in bee-keeping, and each student, by personal experience, made familiar with the varied manipulations of the apiary.

The course in Entomology was very gratifying, the students, without exception, showing that they were studying to some purpose.

Instruction was next given in general Zoology, its history, the different schools of zoological writers, and the classification of animals as given by Agassiz, from branches to orders, inclusive.

The class of birds was more thoroughly studied. Each student determined several species, and wrote out very fully the family, generic, and specific characteristics of each, and pointed out the same to the class.

Instruction was given wholly by lectures, though each student possessed Nicholson's Zoology, which, with specimens, charts, and dissections, afforded much aid.

The last six weeks of the year was devoted to a course of lectures in geology, which covered the different ages, embracing character of rocks as to constitution, structure, and fossil peculiarities, their geological position, and geograph

ical distribution. The different theories as to the formation of granite, drift, lake basins, etc., were discussed so far as time would permit.

The interest of the class in these studies knew no abatement from first to last, and the progress made was quite as satisfactory as the limited time would lead us to expect. Could the first half year be devoted entirely to physiology, and the second half to entomology and zoology, and the geology be removed to the senior year, the course would be more satisfactory.

A. J. COOK.

GEOLOGICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM.

To the President of the State Agricultural College :

I submit the following report of the geological and zoological museum for the year 1874:

A few fossils and mineral specimens have been received, catalogued, and placed on exhibition. These were mostly from students, though Dr. A. T.

Atkins of Locke has made several donations.

We are indebted to Mr. Frank Wells, a former student, for an opossum, caught and prepared by him in southern Ohio, and to Mr. B. T. Nevins for a fine ammonite and several other fossils.

There has been added to the collection from this locality a fine sand-hill crane, our first adult specimen, a remarkably large badger, a rare bat, and starnosed mole. We have also added quite a large number of insects from this region and abroad.

Our room has been much enlarged by the construction of several new cases in place of the herbarium cases, which have been removed.

APIARY.

A. J. COOK.

To the President of the College:

This has been a very prosperous year with the Apiary. Early in the season. we sold all our stocks of bees but one colony, to procure funds to build a special depository.

The colony retained has given us:

One colony

26 lbs. honey, @ 25c-.-

483 lbs. honey, @ 20c-

CO lbs. honey, @ 15c...

Total receipts.--

$12.00

650

9.76

9 00

$37 25

We now have three colonies, having received a donation of one colony.

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Our experience the past season has seemed to show,—

$320 00

1st. That flowers only yield sweets in greatest abundance during dry weather; that the most favorable yield comes when damp or wet weather precedes the bloom, and dry weather comes with the opening of the flowers. Such was our experience the past season with regard to fruit blosoms, clover, basswood, and fall flowers, except that the last had dry weather before and during bloom. Hence the past season has been a remarkable one for the yield of honey.

2d. The necessity of the honey-extractor. The excessive yield of honey during the earliest bloom (fruit blossoms) enabled the bees to fill the hives completely with honey, leaving the queen no empty cells in which to deposit. Hence, unless we extracted, the colonies were depopulated and in poor condition to gather the excessive yield from clover and bass-wood.

This filling the hives with honey had much to do, undoubtedly, with the unusual disposition to swarm, which was generally observed during the past

summer.

3d. The advantage of a compact arrangement for wintering. One-half of our hives were confined by a division-board in the space of one cubic foot, the remainder were given the entire hive, 18 in. by 12 in. by 12 in. All those confined had broods three weeks earlier, and much fewer dead bees in spring.

We have now built an apiary house, and the coming season we desire to lay out our apiary grounds, as before proposed, so as to exhibit, within its too limited area, all the honey plants which are desirable to cultivate.

A. J. COOK.

HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.

To the President of the State Agricultural College:

The following report of the condition and experiments of the horticultural department for the year 1874 is respectfully presented.

W. J. BEAL, Superintendent.

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used all the time at his command in visiting a large number of plant-houses in our own and in other States east and west. Several plans were presented by different architects and rejected before deciding upon the one adopted.

LOCATION.

The house is located on a slight elevation south of west of most of the other college buildings, southwest of the chemical laboratory, about twelve rods, where we have begun to plant flower beds and choice trees in suitable portions of the lawn.

NORTH

VINERY.

NO.4.

CISTERN NO.3.

CISTERN.NO.2.

WALK.

SHELF

WALK.

GENERAL PLAN.

SHELF

WALK.

SHELF

SHELF

The conservatory is 50x25 feet, with one end fronting the east. It is ten feet six inches in hight to the under side of the plate, above which rises a cupola nearly the whole length. The front end is one-half of an octagon in shape, with a porch covering the door. Projecting south from the middle of the conservatory is a wing 62 ft. 9 in. by 25 ft., by 10 ft. in hight. This is divided by glass partitions with doors into three rooms,-a stovehouse, a rose-house, and a small grapery. West of the conservatory is a wooden building in American Swiss style, of peculiar, though pleasing appearance, about twenty-seven feet square, containing an ample potting room, a gardener's room, and a waiting room for visitors, off of which is a dry-earth commode. The parti(Fig. 2.-Ground plan, with some changes. tion between this and the conservaIn place of cisterns number 1 and 3 are wooden tory is of glass. Below the wooden stages for plants, and in place of cistern number building is a cellar 6 feet 9 inches 2 is a rich bed for tropical plants. The two long propagating pits at the southwest are not yet deep, with grouted floor, for the furdone.) nace, fuel, and storing pots and other objects. Above is a large garret for storing boxes, etc. South of the potting room, and joined to it, are three walls 70 feet long and twelve feet apart for two propagating pits.

FRONT SHELF

WALK.

CISTERN NO.I.

WALK.

FRONT SHELF

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FOUNDATION.

The foundation is of stone, two feet below ground and one above. The walls for the pits are two feet higher than the other wails. The middle wall for the pits is of brick, eight inches thick.

CISTERNS.

Under the walls for the pits is a brick cistern 20 feet long, inside by 8 feet wide and 7 feet high, arched over. East of the store-room, outside of the house, is another cistern of the same size and kind as the one described. Pipes and gutters, at present, conduct nearly all the water from the buildings into one cistern. Inside the store-house is a large tank, into which water is pumped from the cistern. From the cistern, after the water is warmed in the tank, a force pump and hose will reach any part of either room in the house.

CURVILINEAR FORM.

The rafters are of curvilinear form, cut from the timber, with the grain, framed together and bolted at each joint with two bolts, and cemented, making one continuous piece from sill to ridge. "A curvilinear roof has some advantages. It is more ornamental. The light is better, because the angle at which it strikes the glass is more varied. Such a roof gives more head room next the sides of the house, without great height at the center." The roof is stronger, and needs no center posts. This is kept from spreading by half-inch iron rods running across from rafter to rafter.

To a person not accustomed to it such a house appears "squatty." The writer saw any number of houses higher than this, but every man who had tried them says, "Do not build high. The lower they are made the better, provided they are high enough to afford room for the plants."

PURLINES.

These are 2x3, tennoned into the rafters, and bolted to the opposite one end to end, placed not more than four feet apart, and grooved to support the

SASH BARS,

which are of wood, and cut with the grain. Sash bars of iron or copper do not obstruct the light, nor harbor insects. They are stout and durable, but no good builders now use them in our variable climate.

BILLS.

These are of white pine, 7x8, well framed, and fastened at the joints with inch iron dogs, sunk flush and tight. They are morticed for the rafters and muttons, and are covered on top by a bevel coping for the ventilator to shut against and to turn off the water.

VENTILATORS.

Just above the sill there is a row of paneled ventilators, hung on upper edge, opening outward, and held in any position by iron straps and pins in the sill. There is a row of sash ventilators along the side of the ridge in the south houses; also a row entirely around the cupola of the conservatory. The latter are filled with glass, red, green, amber, and blue, which give that part of the house a gay appearance. All the top ventilators open with arms fastened to iron rods moved by an endless screw, which holds them securely in any position desired.

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