Tuition is free to residents of the State. Nonresidents pay an annual tuition fee of $25, and all students pay certain fixed fees to cover the actual cost of materials and privileges furnished.

In addition to the regular faculty, numbering eighty-four, the institution employs, from time to time, the services of lecturers on topics of special interest to the students. Those taking up subjects of interest to students in the school of agriculture were, during the past year, Alexander Galbraith, of Janesville, Wis., who lectured on horses; HI. P. Miller, of Sunbury, Ohio, on sheep; O. E. Bradfute, of Cedarville, Ohio, on cattle; T. E. Orr, Pittsburg, Pa., on poultry; W. B. Anderson, Otwell, Ind., on swine; C. M. Hobbs, Bridgeport, Ind., on horticulture; Cal Husselman, Auburn, Ind., on business methods; H. F. McMahan, Manhattan, on domestic economy. Each series of lectures continued for a week or more.

It is interesting to note the practical nature of the work being done by the students, as evidenced by the character of the theses submitted for graduation. Almost without exception they deal with problems of great importance to the community at large. In addition to their instruc

tional work the faculty of the institution are prominently identified with the leading scientific, industrial and economic associations throughout the country and not only render valuable service to Farmers' Institutes and other organizations as lecturers, but are frequently called upon for expert service in connection with the various industries throughout the State, besides publishing articles of great value along these lines. The pamphlet bulletins issued by the Experiment Station are widely disseminated throughout, not only Indiana but the entire country, and in addition to these publications of a more or less scientific character, the station publishes in the agricultural press short articles on topics of general interest and value to the farming community.

A valuable addition to the equipment of the University has been made during the year just closed by the erection of a handsome building designed for the exclusive use of the School of Agriculture and Horticulture.

This is a two-story building on a high basement, of dignified but plain design, the materials used being pressed brick and Bedford stone. An appropriation of $60,000 was made for the erection of this building by the Legislature of 1901, and it has been completed for something less than that amount. It contains laboratories, class rooms, assembly hall, museum, library, and assembly rooms for Farmers' Institutes, etc. It was completed in season to be opened at the beginning of the present academic year, and is now in process of equipment which, when completed, will be among the finest offered by any agricultural college in the country.

Another valuable addition has been nade to the University in the gift, by the late Mrs. Fowler, of Lafayette, of $70,000 to be devoted to the erection of an auditorium. Thus affording a gathering place for students and faculty upon occasions of general interest which has been lacking for many years, in fact ever since the enrollment exceeded the few hundreds which could be accommodated in the small assembly room located in University Hall.

In spite of these additions to its facilities, the institution suffers at the present time from a greatly overcrowded condition.

The increased attendance has crowded buildings, shops and laboratories to a point not to be endured as a permanent condition. Practically the same buildings, with the exception of the agricultural building just completed and the additional recitation rooms obtained by remodeling the old dormitory, are in use for the accommodation of the largely increased number of students as in 1899. To do this it has been necessary to increase the number of sections, assigning more and more to each instructor until, in some of the departments, the teachers work more hours a day and for less pay than a skilled mechanic, under present labor conditions. Lecture rooms have had to be crowded far beyond their capacity, the hours given to each student lessened in number, and every

available corner of shops and laboratories has had to be crowded with apparatus and machinery.

The standards of admission have been raised and enforced with great rigor, and many students have been turned away, yet the present freshman class numbers 375. Students in this class have been enrolled provisionally, as it could not be undertaken to furnish instruction to any such number another year under existing conditions.

Students must continue to be turned away unless a larger income can be obtained, both for instruction and maintenance, and for the provision of additional facilities in the way of buildings and equipment; for while the attendance of students has increased eighty per cent. within the past five years, the income has grown but fifteen per cent.

Since the institution was opened there has been received from the State, for all purposes whatever, $1,102,270. Of this amount $311,212 was for the permanent equipment of the institution. From the United States and other sources, $1,964,086 has been received.

For this investment of something more than a million by the State, she now holds University property valued at $737,682 as follows: Grounds, $100,000; buildings, $451,300; apparatus, $168,212; furniture, etc., $18,170; besides having, as has been said, graduated 1,659 men and women who went out into the world well equipped to help others as well as themselves, and having aided in a similar way, to a greater or less extent, nearly 6,000 others.

The present income of the University is something less than $150,00 of which all but about $66,000, comes from sources aside from State a.ú, which aid is principally given in the form of a State educational tax, amounting for Purdue to one-twentieth of a mill on the dollar.

At present the pressing needs of the University are a new building for the Physics Department, now attempting to instruct over four hundred students in laboratories and class rooms intended for less than half that number; new shops for the department of practical mechanics, relieving the tension in the Engineering Building by allowing the upper classes to occupy the room given up to the shops and foundry; a new gymnasium, which will afford opportunity for physical development so necessary when the mental work is of such an arduous character as in a scho like Purdue, and above all, an income which will provide for these improvements as well as for securing the additional instructors needed to care for the overcrowded classes.

The work of the Agricultural Experiment Station continues to grow in effectiveness, but is much hampered by lack of means, which forbids the publication of many valuable researches, the reprinting of many publications of which the supply is exhausted, but for which the demand still continues, and the more general dissemination of many of the publications now issued. Indiana is almost unique in her treatment of her agricultural experiment station for which no appropriation has ever been

made and which must rely for its support upon the annual appropriation of $15,000 received from the United States, supplemented by the limited aid the University is able to render.

The Farmers' Institute work under the very efficient management of Superintendent W. C. Latta, has undergone a very notable extension with greatly added interest since the increase of the appropriation to $10,000 per annum as the following exhibit will show.

During the year ending June 30, 1902, institutes were held as follows:

Annual institutes (one in each county).

District special meetings.....

Supplemental (two days each in sixty-two counties)...
Supplemental (one day each in eleven counties).

Total ...

Total attendance at ninety-two institutes.
Average attendance at annual institutes.

92

4

74

21

191

23,897
259

I have not full data as to the attendance at the supplemental institutes. Many of these meetings were quite as successful as the annual institutes. They were so placed as to accommodate a distinctly new class of farmers to whom the annual meetings are not usually accessible.

In addition to the above, a Woman's Conference was held in Lafayette in August, 1901, and a general conference of institute workers in October of the same year.

The figures given above do not adequately set forth the growth of the institute work. The local officers in several counties are undergoing a process of education which enables them to prepare better programs from year to year. The institute speakers are not only acquiring added experience, but increased facility and felicity of expression. They now have a number of institute workers who will rank well in comparison with such men and women in other States.

The interest in the work is well sustained. Now and then a meeting is poorly attended, due chiefly to the inefficiency of the chairman in the previous work of advertising.

There is an encouraging tendency to form woman's auxiliaries of the several institutes and a growing demand for women institute workers who can be as helpful to the farmers' wives and daughters as the men workers are to the farmers themselves.

The institutes are just entering upon their first year for which they receive full $10,000 to expend in institute work. The institute schedule shows that in addition to the ninety-two annual institutes, which have been held heretofore, arrangements have been made for seventy-six supplemental meetings, making a total of 186 already arranged for. This number will be considerably increased, so that by the end of the current

season, March 31st, next, there will doubtless have been held 175 or 180 institutes, under State auspices, in addition to quite a number of independent meetings at points which the Superintendent will be unable to take care of during the present year.

The above showing, as to number of meetings held, will compare favorably with that made by other States. I believe the quality of the work done by the assigned speakers will, also, compare favorably with that the workers in this field in other States.

The definite purpose of the general management, with reference to supplemental institutes, is to carry them into localities remote from the annual meetings. In order to do this schoolhouses and churches of smaller size, in rural neighborhoods, must be utilized. Under such circumstances large attendance will frequently be out of the question. It is important, however, to reach these outlying points as frequently as possible in order that the benefits of the institute work may be as equitably distributed over the State as possible.

I might add, further, although it does not come within the University year above named, that the conference of institute workers held at the University last month, far exceeded in numbers, interest and character of work done, any preceding conference, and this augurs well for the effectiveness of work during the current season.

It seems to me that this institute work, reaching as it does all parts of the State, and carrying with it as it does in its investigations and discussions invaluable information on the subject of horticulture as well as agriculture, ought to receive by the members of the Society, ardent support by attendance and in the discussion, wherever its sessions are within reasonable distance from their respective homes.

WORK IN HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT, UNDER THE WISE AND INTELLIGENT MANAGEMENT OF PROF. JAMES TROOP.

The work in the Horticultural Department has kept pace with that in the other departments. A year ago last September, Prof. Wm. Stuart was transferred from the Botanical Department, and made Associate Horticulturist of the Experiment Station. The work of the Experiment Station was then divided, Professor Stuart taking the work in vegetable gardening and Professor Troop the work in fruit growing.

Unfortunately for Purdue the trustees of the University of Vermont thought they needed Professor Stuart more than we did, and so, at the beginning of last September, he severed his connection with Purdue and accepted the position of Professor of Horticulture in that institution. This leaves the work in this department for the present entirely in the hands of Professor Troop, who, in addition to the work in horticulture of both University and Experiment Station, is also carrying the Ento