The Bulletin. 1 



o 



LOCATION OF FARM AND CHARACTER OF SOIL. 



The Iredell Test Farm is located near Statesville, in Iredell 

 County, well up in the Piedmont (foothill) section of the State, 

 the elevation being 950 feet above sea-level. The main type of soil 

 on the farm is red (cecil) clay loam, the subsoil being a moderately 

 heavy clay, but the surface soil has sufficient sand in it to make it 

 a clay loam rather than a clay, though when freshly plowed it would 

 to a casual observer be looked upon as red clay. The main types 

 of soil in the piedmont are cecil sandy loam (gray land), red clay 

 (cecil) loam, red (cecil) clay, the latter two being the predominating 

 types. The clay and clay loam types are rich in potash, the clay 

 containing more potash than the loam, very poor in phosphoric acid, 

 the amount of nitrogen depending on the organic matter in the 

 soil. Samples of soil from the unfertilized plats, on which the 

 experiments were conducted, contain the following amounts of plant 

 food : 



Nitrogen (N) 075 per cent. 



Phosphoric Acid (P2O5) 041 per cent. 



Potash (K2O) 553 per cent. 



Lime (CaO) 396 per cent. 



THE PLATS. 



The plats on which these experiments were conducted were em- 

 braced in Fields A and C. Field A had been long in cultivation 

 and was badly run down when work was started in 1903. The plats 

 were laid off in two series parallel to each other, there being twenty 

 plats to the series, with a driveway and turn-row between plats. 

 The plats are one-tenth acre in size, or 217.8 feet by 20 feet, with 

 space between plats sufficient for two rows of peas or other crops, 

 the row on either side of each plat being fertilized like the plat 

 which it adjoins. These plats were used for fertilizer experiments 

 with cotton in 1903, 1904, 1906, and for fertilizer experiments with 

 corn in 1905, and 1907; for general crop of oats without fertilizer 

 in the fall and spring of 1908, and for fertilizer experiments with 

 peas, the results of which are here reported, in 1908. In the case 

 of each of the three crops the same plan or system of fertilization 

 was followed. By this is meant that Plat One in all cases received 

 only nitrogen ; Plat Two, phosphoric acid ; Plat Three, potash, and 

 so on, though the quantities actually applied varied with the three 

 crops. The fertilization of the cotton plats was based on a normal 

 application of 400 pounds per acre of a mixture containing 7 per 

 cent available phosphoric acid, 21/^ per cent each of nitrogen and 

 potash. The fertilization for corn was based on 300 pounds per 

 acre of a mixture containing 7 per cent phosphoric acid, 3 per cent 

 nitrogen, and 1^/2 P^^^ cent potash. 



