New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 287 



(7) Considering the varjing market price of onions from one 

 year to another and the various vicissitudes to which the crop 

 is subjected, the use of the larger quantities of fertilizer (above 

 500 lbs.) was attended by danger of financial loss. 



GENERAL CONDITIONS. 



Experiments and investigations were begun by the Station in 

 the Second Judicial Department of New York in the year 1894. 



One of the conditions of practice prevalent in that portion of 

 the State, especially with the market gardeners and potato and 

 onion growers, was the excessive use of commercial fertilizers. 

 The application of one ton or more per acre of a high grade, 

 complete fertilizer was frequently observed. 



Reasoning from general facts, it did not seem clear that such 

 a large expenditure for commercial plant-food was justified from 

 the standpoint of profit. In order to determine the correctness 

 of this view, field experiments with fertilizers on potatoes were 

 begun on Long Island in 1895, which were continued until 1900, 

 during the last four years of which time observations were made 

 on four farms located at different points in potato growing dis- 

 tricts. The general outcome of these experiments was to show 

 that, so far as profit from the potato crops was concerned, the 

 use of 1000 lbs. of fertilizer per acre was more profitable than 

 the use of 500 lbs., 1500 lbs. or 2000 lbs. 



In 1898 similar observations were begun at Florida, Orange 

 County, on the use of commercial fertilizers in growing onions. 

 These have been continued each year since, the experiment of 

 1901 being regarded as concluding the series. 



THE EXPERIMENTS. 



PLAN. 



In these experiments, conducted for four years on one farm 

 (Purdy field) and for one year on another (Mars field), approx- 

 imately one acre of land was utilized in each locality. This acre 



