EXPERIMENT STATION REPORTS. 87 



The trees at the South Haven Sub-station are now in full bearing and 

 are teaching the lessons to be drawn from the battles of the varieties. In 

 peaches the station has definitely pointed out the leading varieties which 

 can be planted with certainty, to furnish a succession of fruit throughout 

 the possible season. There are also extensive plantings of cherries, plums, 

 and small fruits. The narrow boundaries of the area controlled by the 

 station prevents more extended trials. The work already accomplished 

 fits so admirably into the needs and present condition of the orchards in 

 the fruit belt that no change in method or policy is recommended. 



At the home station the work on the plots has been devoted largely to 

 a study of the lessons taught by legumes. There have been investigations- 

 with sugar beets, with wheat, and with the cereals generally, but the em- 

 phasis has been laid upon legumes. Chief among these legumes has been, 

 of course, alfalfa. Bulletin 225 attached to this report gives the results 

 of the work. Alfalfa has been a treacherous crop rather more full of prom- 

 ise than of performance. It is not yet out of the experimental stage. It 

 has been tried from Lake Superior to the Ohio line. In less than half of 

 the cases has it succeeded, even for a single year. Cultural methods are 

 being investigated and a true value determined for inoculation. Among 

 the other prominent legumes studied were soy beans, cow peas and vetches. 

 Part of the work with these important plants has be^n reported in bulletin 

 227. It is not at all probable that either soy beans or cow peas will ever 

 become as prominent a field crop as clover or even as alfalfa, but, it is prob- 

 able that they will find an extended use as green manures. The station 

 has practically demonstrated that the amount of nitrogen to be furnished 

 by one of these crops is dependent upon the number and vigor of the nod- 

 ules on the roots. 



As to vetches, the work to date has shown that it is a dangerous plant 

 to introduce in fertile fields but that it will furnish a large amount of nitro- 

 gen when the roots are inoculated. 



The work with sugar beets has been mainly directed toward the supply 

 of better seed to the factories. At the harvest of 1902 certain mother beets 

 were selected, first by their form and next, by the polariscope. Those that 

 tested high in sugar are set out, in 1903, and from them seed was harvested. 

 This seed was sown in 1904 and the resulting beets tested. It was found 

 that the great majority of the mother beets did not produce seed which 

 w^ould in turn grow beets as rich as the mothers themselves. Naturally 

 no mother beets were saved form the plots in which the average test was 

 not as great or greater than the test of the mother beet which produced the 

 seed. In a few cases the beets were fairly uniform in sugar content and 

 the per cent was as high or higher than that of the mother beets. From 

 these plots the mother beets were selected in the fall of 1904, for setting 

 out in 1905. 



In the meantime, the United States Department of Agriculture, donated 

 to the station selected seed of several varieties for use in this work. These 

 varieties were sown in the spring of 1904. In the fall of that year the plots 

 ■were so harvested as to place all of the roots of a given variety side by side 

 with the tops on. By making the first selection according to the type of 

 root most prevalent on the plot it was found that the tops of these selected 

 roots were quite similar and the form of top thus pointed out was taken 

 as the type of the top for that variety. Practically all of the beets of typ- 

 ical form were pitted. In the spring of 1905 the pits were opened and the 



