EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



255 



apart. From one of these rows which in appearances, in height and in thrift, 

 fairly represented the plot, there was removed 8 feet in length. This was done 

 by digging a trench on each side of the row and 9 inches distant from it. The 

 earth was then washed out or gently shaken out from the roots. As far as 

 possible every rootlet was saved with all the nodules. This gave, of course, 

 the total yield of foliage, stems, roots and nodules on 12 square feet. This 

 material was taken to the laboratory and the forage separated from the roots 

 at the point where the knife of the mower would have cut at haying. The forage 

 and roots were then separately weighed and separately analyzed. 



To secure a sample of clover to compare with the soy beans, cowpeas and 

 vetches, an area 8 feet long by 18 inches wide was surrounded by a trench and 

 the clover roots carefully removed and freed from adherent soil by shaking gently 

 and by washing. The samples of clover were then divided into forage and roots 

 just above the crown and were weighed and analyzed. The depth to which 

 roots were taken in each case was 8 inches. The weights of the forage and 

 roots on the 12 square feet of the several legumes were as follows: 



Legume. Forage Lbs. Roots. Lbs. 



Medium green soy 5.125 .454 



Ogemaw soy 169 .25 



New Era cowpeas 3.94 .319 



Vicia globosa 1-25 .125 



June clover, second crop 1.5 1.44 



Clover, new seeding 4.625 .75 



The results of the analyses of the above material are set forth in the following 

 table, the per cent of ash, protein, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash being the 

 parts per hundred of dry substance and not the per cents of total weight: 



Since the table gives the proportions of the different constituents in per cent 

 of dry matter, they are directly comparable. It is to be noted that the per cent 

 of nitrogen in the dry matter of the forage of soy beans, cowpeas, vetches and 

 new seeding clover, does not widely differ. The nitrogen in the nodules of the 

 soy beans and cowpeas is practically four per cent of the dry matter, while the 

 nitrogen in the roots is approximately one per cent where the nodules have been 

 removed and over two per cent where the nodules were analyzed with the roots, 

 as was the case with the clovers and the vetch. The per cent of potash in the 

 forage of the clover, scarcely five months old from the seed, is significant. It is 

 more than twice as high as in the dry matter of the forage of the second crop 

 of clover. 



