626 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



think for a moment of trying to raise, even on our best New York 

 land, wheat for twenty consecutive years, even though the soil was 

 fitted in the best possible manner yearly. 



The following investigations show the amount of patent food 

 demanded or used by old orchard trees. The old apple orchard on 

 the University farm, largely body-grafted, set at the beginning of 

 the century, situated on gravelly soil, with stone and sand subsoil at 

 the depth of from three to six feet, was seeded in 1876 to perma- 

 nent pasture. Only about one-third of the trees of the original 

 orchard still remained, and they bore little merchantable fruit. 

 Some of the varieties were worthless, the trees were overloaded 

 with brush, and looked like many trees one sees in passing through 

 the country. The orchard, since seeding, has been pruned from 

 time to time, and top-dressed with farm manures some three or 

 four times. The field has never been grazed closely, and nearly 

 every fall cattle have been fed coarse, supplementary food upon it. 



Most of the trees soon showed increased vigor and fruitfulness. 

 A Seek-no-further tree, nearly destitute of apples, in a fairly thrifty 

 condition, but below the normal size of trees of its age (see illustra- 

 tion on page 617) was selected for the following investigations: 



(1) Amount and composition of leaves. 



(2) Amount and composition of wood, 1894. 



(3) Amount and composition of wood, 1895. 



(4) Amount and composition of limbs and trunk. 



(5) Amount and composition of roots. 



The work of picking leaves began July 1, 1895, and the final 

 sampling of trunk and roots was completed July 12. The limbs, 

 trunk and roots were sampled by sawing numerous pieces several 

 times crosswise, thereby securing uniform samples of sawdust for 

 analyses. 



Table XI. 



Leaves. 



Lbs. 



Total weight 232.02 



Total weight water 139.51 



Total weight dry matter 92.51 



Total weight nitrogen -96 



Total weight phosphoric acid 37 



Total weight potash 1.32^ 



