16 



EXPERIMENTS IN BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 



photograph was taken, had about quadrupled its leaf surface. In the 

 blueberr}^ soil the cutting was barely alive, the roots it had at the 

 time it was potted were nearly all dead, no new stem growth had been 

 made, and the leaflets it bore were only those still persisting from 

 the parent plant. 



The alfalfa seeds began to germinate in both soils in three days. 

 At the end of a week a distinct difference in the color of the plants 

 was discernible. In the blueberry soil the seed leaves were darker 

 green in color, the midrib, which shows on the back of the leaf, was 



Fir.. 1. — Rose cutting in rich garden soil. 

 (One-lialf natural size.) 



Fig. 2. — Rose cutting in peat mix- 

 ture. (One-half natural size.) 



purple, the stem was purple, and in some of the seed leaves the whole 

 under surface was purple. In the garden soil the seed leaves were 

 lighter green in color, and in only a few were the stems, and in still 

 fewer the midribs, somewhat purplish. At the end of forty-four days, 

 when the photographs reproduced in figures 3 and 4 were taken, the 

 alfalfa plants in the garden soil were 3 inches in height and vigorous, 

 Avhile the soil was crowded with roots on which nitrogen tubercles 

 had already begun to develop. In the blueberry soil the plants were 

 small leaved and sickly, about a third the height of the others, and 



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