FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 21 



May says : "Although the stand is not perfect by any means, 

 I think I may claim without boasting that today I have the best 

 plot of >4 acre of alfalfa in Maine," There are other small 

 pieces in Brunswick that are partial successes. Rust which has 

 proven so destructive in Vermont and Northern New York has 

 not been reported in Maine. Weeds are apparently the greatest 

 menace of any one thing to successful alfalfa growing in the 

 State. A representative of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 who has made two trips through New England studying the 

 alalfa growing, is of the opinion that the dying out of alfalfa 

 may "possibly be from winter killing but more probably by being 

 run out by native grasses." 



Unfortunately, as noticed on page 9 the cultures that were 

 sent out last year for inoculating soils proved unreliable and 

 cannot be counted upon for soil inoculation. Any one desiring 

 to experiment with alfalfa will therefore have to grow it without 

 inoculating the soil, or w'ill have to obtain soil from a field where 

 alfalfa has been grown and produced an abundance of root 

 nodules. In order to be of value to Maine agriculture a good 

 stand must be obtained and the stand must be able to continue 

 not one, but several years. The Station does not advise anyone 

 in this State to grow alfalfa at present except in an experimental 

 way. To those who have land that seems to be suited to alfalfa 

 and have the time and patience to thoroughly care for the crop, 

 the Station will gladly lend assistance in any way that it can. 

 That alfalfa would be a valuable addition to cur forage crops 

 needs no demonstration. If the difficulties which thus far have 

 prevented its successful culture can be surmounted, it will more 

 than recompense the cost of the many hundreds of trials that 

 have been given this plant in Maine during the past 25 years. 



Home Mixed Fertilizers For Potatoes 

 There are sold in Maine a large number (about 40) brands 

 of fertilizers that contain the word "potato" in their name. In 

 the case of more than half of these brands there seems to be no 

 reason, other than the attractiveness of the word, to call them 

 potato fertilizers. More than half of them have the composition 

 of general purpose goods, carrying about 3 per cent of nitrogen, 

 8 per cent of phosphoric acid, and 3 per cent of potash. The 

 same formulas could, with equal propriety, be called corn fertili- 



