216 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



REPORT OF THE UPPER PENINSULA ST^B STATION FOR THE 



YEARS 1901 AND 1902. 



LEO M. GEISMAR, SUPERINTENDENT; CLINTON D. SMITH, DIRECTOR. 



Special Bulletin No. 20. 



The results of the work accomplished at this Station for the year 1900 are re- 

 ported in Bulletin 186, Report Michigan Board of Agriculture for 1901, page 149. 

 The station is located at Chatham, Alger county, the southeast quarter of section 

 28, range 46 north, 21 west and consists of 160 acres of which something less than 

 thirty acres are cleared at the date of this report, January 1, 1903. A house for. 

 the superintendent and a barn for storing tools and crops has been built in 1900 

 and a fence erected about the cleared areas. It was found difficult, however, to 

 exclude the roaming cows belonging to the residents of the near-by village and 

 the deer from the forests bordering the station on all sides. During the years 

 covered by this report, the fence had to be reinforced by additional wires as deer 

 do not seem able to learn the significance of barbs on wires; and new gates 

 were put up in front of the house. The yards were graded about the buildings 

 and the springs along the bases of the terraces were drained through tile. 



The amount of land available for crops has been Increased north of the house 

 and to the westward but there is an Immediate necessity for more land ready for 

 the plow. The size of the plots is too small to allow safe comparisons or cal- 

 culations of acre yields. To secure cleared land at once the trees have to be 

 blown out with dynamite and the pieces removed by the grub-hoe and team. 

 This is an expensive operation and the funds at the disposal of the station have 

 not allowed an appreciable extension of the workable lands. 



It was planned to clear a second forty by cutting down the trees in the usual 

 way and allowing the stumps to rot out, meantime using the field for pasture, 

 but it was found impossible to secure the men for the work and the plan had to 

 be abandoned temporarily. 



The orchard of apples, cherries and tree fruits generally is situated north of 

 the house on a terrace, level, but with good air drainage and with soil well adapted 

 to fruit. Between the rows of trees some trials of vegetables have been carried 

 forward as described below. The small fruits are located south of the creek on a 

 terrace high enough to avoid flooding from high water. 



• 



WEATHER CONDITIONS, 



The season of 1900 had been an exceedingly wet one as reported in Bulletin 

 186. There was a rainfall of 15.18 inches between the sixth of July and the 

 last day of September. 



The year 1901 was, in some respects a repetition of 1900. The rainfall was ex- 

 cessive with extremes of cold and heat. Spring was late in opening with snow 

 on the ground as late as April 24. When the warm weather came it was inter- 

 rupted by frequent frosts up to the middle of June, the freeze on the night of 

 June 8 killing all small fruit as the currants were nearly full grown, and the straw- 

 berries in blossom. There were frosts also on the nights of July 8, September 9, 

 19 and 30, and October 3. The killing frosts came early in the fall on the fourth 

 and sixth of October. 



The first permanent snow fell November 3 although there had been flurries 

 on the fourth and seventeenth of October. 



The season of 3902 was quite unlike that of 1901. The spring was early and 

 the autumn late. The snow had practically all disappeared April 9 and vegeta- 

 tion was in active growth by the middle of the month. May temperatures were 

 above the normal, and while several frosts occurred during that month, they caused 

 no damage. 



The frost of June 5 did less damage than the steady cool weather which pre- 

 vailed during the balance of the month. All vegetation started at a rapid pace 

 soon after the first of July, at the close of a prolonged cool period, and remained 



