REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 53 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



undertaken in their interests and with the special object of making farming more 

 profitable their sympathy and co-operation is assured. 



The subject of experimental agriculture covers much too large a field to permit 

 of its being treat-ed in a comprehensive manner in a single address. I can, therefore, 

 but refer briefly to a few important points in connection with the work which has 

 been done by the Canadian Experimental Farms, such as will indicate the general 

 trend of the work and' serve as specimens of the many lines of research undertaken. 



The principles which underly successful crop-growing in. Canada may be thus 

 summarized : 



Maintaining the fertility of the land, mainly by the proper care and use of barn- 

 yard manure and the ploughing under of green clover, thus adding fertility and 

 humus. 



Adopting a judicious rotation of crops. 



Following the best methods of preparing the land. 



Early sowing. 



Choosing the best and most productive varieties. 



The selection of plump and well-ripened seed. 



Along these several lines many experiments have been conducted. 



Continued efforts have been made to gain knowledge as to the bes-t methods of 

 maintaining and adding to the fertility of the land. In this connection, special atten- 

 tion has been given to investigations to determine the best methods of handling and 

 using barn-yard manure, the universal fertilizer which is more or less available 

 everywhere to the average Canadian farmer. Experiments continued for eleven years 

 have shown that a given weight of manure taken fresh from the barn yard is equal 

 in crop-producing power to the same weight of rotted manure. It has also been 

 shown by repeated tests that fresh manure loses during the prooess of rotting from 

 50 per cent to 60 per cent of its weight. The effective use of barn-yard manure so 

 as to obtain the best results with the least waste is without doubt one of the most 

 important problems connected with successful agriculture, for on this material the 

 farmer's ho'pes of maintaining the fertility of his land and thus providing for a suc- 

 cession of good crops are mainly based. 



During the past eleven years annual tests have been made to gain information 

 on the relative value of artificial manures, used separately and in combination, on 

 nearly all the more important farm crops, and the average results of this work have 

 been published. These -oontinued experiments with artificial fertilizers, used alone, 

 have given results which are disappointing, considering the large proportion of avail- 

 able plant food they contain. One reason for this lies probably in the fact that these 

 fertilizers contain no humus and that the proportion of vegetable matter in the soil 

 has been much reduced by constant cropping. The capacity of the soil for holding 

 moisture has been lessened, to the detriment of its crop-producing power. 



Experiments have also been conducted for several years in th? ploughing under 

 of green clover to enrich the land, and it has been demonstrated that clover seed can 

 be sown in all the eastern provinces of Canada and in the coast climate of British 

 Columbia to advantage with all cereal crops, without lessening the grain crop for the 

 current year, and that after the grain is cut the clover grows luxuriantly, acting as 

 a catch crop during the latter part of the season. Green clover is specially valuable 

 to the land, for the reason that it absorbs while growing large quantities of nitrogen 

 from the air which is stored up in its tissues. A heavy mat of growth is produced by 

 the autumn, which, when ploughed under, adds considerably to the available nitrogen 

 in the soil as well as to the store of humus. The proportion of nitrogen thus added to 

 the land has been found to be equal to that obtained from a dressing of 10 tons of barn- 

 yard manure to the acre. Considerable supplies of potash, phosphoric acid and lime 

 are also taken up by the clover plant during its growth, a part of which is gathered from 

 depths in the soil not reached by some other farm crops. In this way the clover is 

 practically an enricher of the soil to some extent in these other important elements. 



