PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 357 



on rust, but rust itself is just as much a growth from the spore as the 

 bean plant is from the bean. 



Mr. Slayton: Then we are to consider that there are spores of rust 

 always with us? 



Prof. Taft: Likely to be; yes, sir. 



Mr. Slayton: And develop when the weather is just right? 



Prof, Taft: Not only that, but every plant has a distinct rust of its 

 ow^n. I don't know how many thousands of fungi there are around, but 

 there are a half-dozen kinds. 



A Member: I had two pieces of ground well prepared during the 

 month of May, and planted sweet corn, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and 

 potatoes, and I had a full crop of everything except potatoes, which were 

 not worth the digging; and I would like to know what was the trouble. 

 I planted them in the same kind of ground and planted them all at the 

 same time, and it was a new experience to me. You have talked a good 

 deal about loving what you grow. I always take an interest in my gar- 

 den, and this was a new experience to me and I could not account for it, 

 and so I asked the question. I would like to know why it was I did not 

 have any potato crop when I had a full crop of everything else I planted. 



Prof. Tracy: I can not give any explanation without knowing more 

 about the circumstances and conditions under which the things were 

 grown than I do now. I can not even suggest, now, a reason for it — it 

 would be clearly guessing. 



Mr. Harrison: I would suggest a lack of potash. We planted two 

 pieces of potatoes on a mucky piece of soil, and on a portion of it we 

 put an application of muriate of potash. Where we sowed the potash we 

 had over 200 bushels of potatoes to the acre, and where w^e did not use 

 potash we had about 100 bushels per acre, and the potatoes were not 

 as good. The potato is a great potash consumer, and it might be your 

 failure was from a lack of that material. 



Mr. Williams : To go back to this cover crop, I w^ould like to know if 

 rye furnishes nitrogen to the soil when plowed under as a green' crop. 

 The reason I ask this question is, I was quite interested when our friend 

 from Canada was reading a paper, and the idea seemed to prevail, if Iv 

 understood it right, that we must have clover or peas or something of that 

 class of green crop, the roots of which have a peculiar way of developing 

 bacteria. I can not give you the scientific terms, but something on the 

 roots that produces this nitrogen, and that rye does not do it. Now, when 

 our friend from Wisconsin asks about rye, the impression here seems to 

 be that it does produce nitrogen, and yet it does not have that peculiar 

 kind of root. I w^ould like to know whether rye does add nitrogen to the 

 soil, and if I understood the talk yesterday right. 



Prof. Tracy: I do not think that it adds nearly so much nitrogen as 

 some other plants. The fact of it is, I used to be a very warm advocate 

 of rye, and used it very largely and thought very highly of it. Of late 

 years I have thought less and less of it, and I have had larger experience 

 in using other plants. I am using clover more largely than I ever did I 

 before. We sow clover, and if we get any crop that is off early in August' 

 or the early part of August, we put on clover seed and we put on a great 

 deal. We do not expect that to go through the winter. If I could only 

 get a place where I could grow Crimson clover the way they do down in 



