228 



Field experiments icith fertilizers on wheat (pp. 8-11). — The general 

 plau of this experiiueut was the same as that ou the same field last year. 

 Dissolved boue-black, "acid black-' (320 pounds per acre), muriate of 

 potash (IGO pouuds), dried blood (IGO poimds), singly, two by two, and 

 all three together, were compared with each other and with cotton-seed- 

 hnll ashes (400 pounds) on one plat, two plats being left nnmanured. 

 The results as given iu a table are similar to those of last year and indi- 

 cate that "this soil did not need fertilizers for wheat." 



Co operative experiments (pp. 12-16). — Brief rei)orts are given from a 

 number of farmers who tested varieties of wheat and the effects of fer- 

 tilizers sent them by the station. 



A NEW WHEAT FLY, H. Garman (pp. lG-20, illustrated). — The author 

 thinks that he has identified as Oscinis variabilis, Loew., a small fly 

 which he found in a grub state infesting wheat iu Fayette County, 

 Kentucky. 



In structure ami habit, as far as I have observed the latter, it proves so like the 

 European species that it might perhaps" be appropriately named the American frit fly. 

 It was common last fall on young wheat and especially so on that growing where the 

 wheat shocks had stood in the su mmer. The central blades of infested plants generally 

 have the central leaf dead and brown, aud when the green outer blades are stripped 

 otf the cavity within them is found to contain only the dead tissue of the plant, and. 

 refuse in which the author of the injury — a small yellowish white grub — generally 

 occurs. 



The insect in its different stages is described and illustrated. It was 

 observed most abundantly on volunteer plants, which should be de- 

 stroyed in the fall and winter on account of this aud other pests which 

 they harbor. 



Maryland Station, Bulletin No. 6, September, 1889 (pp. 79). 



Commercial fertilizers, H. E. Alvord, C. E., and H. J. Pat- 

 terson, B. S. (pp. 71-147). — In the introduction it is stated that "Mary- 

 laud is more deeply concerned in the subject of commercial fertilizers 

 than any other State in the Union." 



Ten years ago the farmers of Maryland were paying nearly |3,000,000 ($2,838,465) 

 for fertilizers. Tiiis enormous expenditure was exceeded by only two States— Penn- 

 sylvania, with 200,000 farms, aud Georgia, with 140,000 farms— while Maryland had 

 only 40,000 farms. Marylaud spent in 1879 over $70 for manures, for every farm within 

 her borders; no other State averaged $50 per farm, and but one even half as much as 

 Maryland. This State paid out 85 cents for fertilizers for every acre of improved land 

 in farms ; New Jersey alone approached this amount. But the worst showing was the 

 relation of expenditures for fertilizers to the total annual income from the farms ; for 

 every .$100 received in Maryland during the last census year for agricultural products 

 of every description, $9.84 was expended for commercial fertilizers— almost a tenth 

 part of the entire income of the farmers of the State. 



This expenditure is no doubt relatively less at the present time iu 

 Maryland and the other States than it was ten years ago, but it is still 

 a heavy tax ou agriculture. More than forty years ago the Maryland 



