220 Report of the Botanical Department of the 



DETAILS OF THE TEN- YEAR EXPERIMENTS IN 1911. 



at geneva. 



During 1911 the experiment at Geneva was carried out in prac- 

 tically the same manner as in previous years. As usual, there 

 were fifteen rows 290.4 feet long by three feet wide. Planting 

 was done by hand on May 22 and 23. The variety was Rural 

 New Yorker No. 2. Each row received ten pounds (500 lbs. per 

 acre) of chemical fertilizer applied by hand as uniformly as pos- 

 sible in the open furrow at planting time. The soil was of the 

 same general character as that used for the experiment during the 

 past eight years, namely, a rather heavy gravelly clay loam with 

 good surface drainage. Because of the very dry weather which 

 prevailed for about seven weeks after planting the young potato 

 plants made a slow, spindling growth at first and never attained 

 large size. However, the unfavorable conditions at the start were 

 partly oifset by an unusually long growing season — May 22 to 

 October 27 — with an abundance of rain in the last few weeks. 



The five rows constituting Series I were sprayed three times 

 with bordeaiix — July 6, 20 and August 17. 



The five rows constituting 'Series II were sprayed seven times 

 with bordeaux — July 6, 20, August 4, 17, 31, September 15 and 

 30. 



The five rows constituting Series III (check) were not sprayed 

 at all with bordeaux. 



Colorado potato beetles or " bugs " were eliminated from the 

 experiment by means of paris green which was applied over the 

 entire field twice and to portions of the check rows a third time. 

 The first two applications were made on the dates of the first two 

 sprayings (July 6 and 20), the paris green being mixed with the 

 bordeaux used on Series I and II while on the check rows (Series 

 III) it was applied with lime water. The third application of 

 paris green (made August 17) was required only on certain 

 portions of the check rows which were being slightly injured by 

 bugs. In all cases the paris green was used at the rate of one 

 pound to fifty gallons. 



