18 



EXPERIMENTS IN BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 



The man who put the bhieberry seedlings in 

 the ground, however, misunderstanding the 

 directions sent him, filled in the holes in which 

 he set the plants with alternate layers of soil 

 and Avell-rotted stable manure. The writer ex- 

 amined the plants on August 27, 1900. when 

 they should have been either growing vigor- 

 ously or, with mature foliage, ripening their 

 Avood for the winter. Instead they had lost 

 nearly all their older leaves though still main- 

 taining a feeble and spindling growth at the 

 ends of the larger stems. The adjacent old 

 bushes growing in precisely the same soil, ex- 

 cept that it had not received the heavy appli- 

 cation of manure, bore at the same time vigor- 

 ous dark-green foliage and were ripening the 

 wood of their stout twigs and laying down 

 their flowering buds for the following year. 

 The manured plants when dug up and exam- 

 ined showed no new root growth whatever in 

 the manured soil outside the old earth ball, and 

 most of the roots on the surface of the ball 

 itself were dead. 



Another experiment may be cited to show 

 the injurious eifect of heavy manuring. On 

 December 22, 1908, six blueberry seedlings were 

 transplanted into as many glass pots in a good 

 blueberry soil, and six 

 other seedlings w^ere 

 potted in the same 

 manner, except that to 

 each two parts of blue- 

 berry soil one part of 

 well-rotted but un- 

 leached cow manure 

 was added. At first 

 the manured plants 

 appeared, superficially, 

 to be doing better than 

 those not manured, for 

 in the former the pro- 

 duction of ncAv leaves 

 and the continued 

 growth of the stem tip 



193 



f¥^\M^::-' 



D 



Fig. 5. — Bhieherry seedling 

 in rich garden soil. (One- 

 half natural size.) 



// 



Fig. 0. — Blnolu'rry seedling 

 in peat mixture. (One- 

 half natural size.) 



