464 Journal of Agricultural Research voi. xin. no. 9 



THIRD YEAR OF THE EXPERIMENTS, 1916 



The beets, com, beans, and potatoes were removed during October, 

 191 5, and the ground was prepared for a third application of manure 

 containing added borax and colemanite. The amount of manure and 

 the treatments were identical with the two previous ones. After the 

 manure had been applied to the plots, they were plowed and harrowed. 

 On November 3 rye was planted on all the plots and the ground re- 

 harrowed. 



On November 29 the rye had germinated and appeared 2 inches above 

 the ground. The rye on the control plots was not affected by the heavy 

 applications of manure, but on the colemanite-treated plot, 40-ton appli- 

 cation, the rye showed a red tinge at the base of the leaf and stems. 

 The tips of the leaves were green. The plants on the 24-ton colemanite- 

 treated plot showed this reddish tinge to a slight degree, while the 

 plants on the 16-ton plot were normal. On the borax-treated plot, 

 40-ton rate, a slight reddish coloration of the leaves was obsen^ed. 

 This was not quite as noticeable as on the corresponding colemanite- 

 treated plot. Plants on the 16- and 24-ton borax-treated plots were 

 normal. 



During the spring of 191 6 the initial coloration of some of the plants 

 on the heavily boron-manured sections disappeared, and throughout 

 the growing period in the spring it was impossible to detect any difference 

 in the rye on the various plots. It was found necessary on harvesting 

 the rye on June 27 to cut it with a scythe, as the wind and rain had 

 beaten down a great deal of it. The rye from each plot was stacked 

 separately, and 100 heads were picked at randon from each of the nine 

 plots. The total weights of the straw and grain from each plot v/ere 

 also taken. The weights are given in Table XII, together with analyses 

 of the rye heads and rye straw from each plot for moisture, fat, nitrogen, 

 and boric acid. It is evident from the weights of straw and grain that 

 the best yields were obtained from the 16-ton plots, while the 40-ton plots 

 gave the lowest yields. The total weight of the straw from the three 

 plots receiving the same treatment showed but little difference — that is, 

 from the borax-treated plots 820 pounds of straw and grain were ob- 

 tained; from the colemanite plots 725 pounds (on two of the plots the 

 straw was beaten down), and from the three control plots 800 pounds 

 (the straw was beaten down on one of the three plots). The striking 

 fact is that the yields from the three control plots showed the same 

 tendency to decrease with an increased application of manure as from 

 the boron-treated plots, which indicates that the increased amounts of 

 manure rather than the boron were the determining factors. The v/eights 

 of the 100 heads of rye given in Table XII are slightly larger for the con- 

 trol samples than for the heads grown on either the borax or the cole- 

 manite manured plots. The weight of 100 heads from the 40-ton borax- 



