166 REPORT OF THE BOTANIST OF 



June grass sown last year is very thin and small, and that sown this spring 

 is very slender, some of it an inch high. 



Alsike clover pleases all who see it; bees are working freely on the numer- 

 ous blossoms. The plants are rather thin on the ground and each plant 

 spreads, but I believe mammoth clover in August will cut the most in 

 weight. Manure helps the alsike clover, but superphosphate seems to have 

 helped it still more. 



The alfalfa is thin, slender, ten inches high, and probably is pining for 

 more heat. 



Meadow fescue is two and one-half feet high and in flower. Plants are 

 thin, but make quite a display; on the whole better than the Timothy. 



Strawberries are spreading quite freely and some are in fruit, or have been 

 this season. They are common on the plains. 



Mr. R. Knaggs, in the village, has raised good strawberries year after year 

 on the same ground without any manure. 



BALDWIN. 



The plats at this place nearly repeat those at Walton previously noticed. 

 I give a few notes taken on June 29, of this year : 



Where nine species were sown on new land after it had merely been 

 harrowed once, there is rarely a plant to be seen of the species sown. 

 Mammoth clover covers two-thirds of the ground where it was sown last 

 year after plowing, and is twenty inches high. Early red clover is thinner 

 and shorter ; orchard grass patchy and very short ; alsike clover spreading, 

 not so good as at Walton; Timothy one-half to two feet high; tall oat 

 grass three to five feet high, but found in scattering bunches. But little 

 was sown. The ground in this plat may be rather better than that of some 

 others. No spurry was seen. Where nine sorts were sown together on 

 cultivated ground the grasses are thickest and best of all the plats. There 

 is a very good crop, the clovers predominating. 



Through some mismanagement no superphosphate was sown at Baldwin, 

 and but very little manure could be obtained at the stables in the village. A 

 little plaster was sown on a part of each of the plats and seems to have done 

 a little good. 



HARRISON. 



The old land mentioned in my last report had been cropped six or more 

 times in succession without the use of any fertilizers or without seeding to 

 grass or clover. It was very thin. The land leased was part of a large field 

 of an abandoned farm. The fence was very poor. The owner declined to 

 keep it in repair for another year. This part of the work at Harrison has 

 been abandoned. The experiments of a single season have helped to 

 indicate that there is no use in cropping or seeding such land to anything 

 without the use of fertilizers of some kind. 



The ten acres of new land given us by Messrs. Wilson will next be noticed. 

 Half of it was plowed for the first time last fall. The south two acres were 

 well " grubbed " before plowing; the three acres north of the south two 

 acres were not " grubbed " before plowing. The five acres plowed last fall 

 were rolled and harrowed well this spring and seeded as follows : A piece 



