192 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Brassica nigra (black innstarcl), Bromus secalinus (chess), Capsella Bursa- 

 pastoris (Sliepavd's purse), Erechtliites liieracifolia ((ire-weed). Euphorbia 

 maculata (s))otted spurge), Lcpidiuiii Virginicum (pepper-grass), Lychnis 

 Gitliago (cockle), Maruta cotula (May-weed), Malva rotundifolia (^fallow), 

 Oeuethcra biennis (evening ))rinirose), Plautago major (broad leaved plan- 

 tain), Polygonuni llydroiiiper (Smart weed), Partulaca oleracea (purselane), 

 Quercus rubra or coccinea (red or scarlet oak), Rumex crispus (narrow dock), 

 Setaria glauca (pigeon grass or foxtail), Stcllaria media (chickweed). Thuja 

 occidentalis (arbor vita^), Trifolium repens (white clover), Verbascum Thapsus 

 (mullein). I have prepared twenty lots of these seeds all alike. All of each 

 lot, fifty seeds of each species, are mixed with damp sand dug uj) three feet 

 below the surface, and placed in a pint bottle. The seeds are well mixed in 

 the sand, the bottle is left uncorked and placed with the mouth slanting down- 

 wards. The bottles are buried in a row running east and west, and are placed 

 fifteen paces northwest from the west end of tlie big stone set up by the class 

 of 1873. A boulder stone is set at each end of the row of bottles. The bot- 

 tles are buried about twenty inches below the surface of the ground. The 

 acorns are placed outside of the bottles but near them. 



Feeding the Leaves of Plants with Soup. 



For some time botanists have known that certain plants appropriated small 

 insects to their use by catching and dissolving or digesting their soft parts. 

 Plants of the martynia, tomato, petunia are well supplied with numerous hairs 

 which have glands at the tip which secrete and exude a sticky substance. Per- 

 haps these glands take up gases from the air or dissolve and use the soft parts 

 of insects which they sometimes capture. 



Mr. H. E. Owen of the Senior class started two seeds of the martynia in each 

 of nine flower pots. "When the true or coarse leaves appeared, he protected the 

 surface of each pot with a cone-shaped piece of lead foil. The plants were 

 placed in the greenhouse and watered when necesssary. He made soup from a 

 quart of water and a j^iece of meat the size of one's hand. The soup was ap- 

 plied daily with a small swab to the upper surface of the leaves of one plant in 

 each pot. This was done from June 30 to August 1. Two of the plants were 

 fed twice daily instead of once a day. Fresh soup was made occasionally. In 

 all cases those to which the soup was applied were least thrifty. The soup pro- 

 duced dead spots on the leaves and gave them a sickly appearance. Perhaps 

 the soup was too strong ; probably the plants do not like food served up in this 

 form. 



Five pots of petunias, two plants in each pot, were treated in a similar 

 manner. In two cases the plants to which the soup was applied were largest; 

 in three cases they were smallest. There was not much difference in the size 

 of the two plants in any pot "svhich contained petunias. 



Two pots of tomatoes were planted and treated in a manner similar to the 

 above. The plants to which the soup was applied daily were smaller than those 

 which were not thus treated. The leaves seemed much injured by the soup. 



The report of these failures may be worth something. Undoubtedly the 

 solution was too strong for the plants. If more diluted, or applied in some 

 other way, perhaps the results would have been quite different. 



Improving/ Onions by Selection. 



We continue the experiment of improving the keeping quality of white globe 

 onions by planting for seed only those which keep the longest in spring without 



