New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 231 
The material used for the cover was thin cheese-cloth known 
as “ Bombay,” which cost about 4 cents per yard. The strips 
were sewed together into one piece large enough to cover the 
ground. for about two feet around the outside of the bed. A 
strong cord was hemmed in the margin on the four sides and to 
this small rings were sewed at intervals of three feet. 
The stakes used to support the cover were placed three feet apart 
around the outside of the plat. To the tops of these stakes were 
stapled small snaps to which the rings already referred to were 
fastened. To support the canvas, stakes were driven 10 feet apart 
in every other row. The tops were padded to prevent wearing 
holes in the cloth. Over the tops of these stakes wires were 
strung lengthwise of the rows for the canvas to rest on. All 
stakes except those to which the supporting wires were attached 
were two and one-half feet long and were driven down about 10 
. inches thus supporting the canvas about 20 inches above the 
ground. See Plates XII and XIII. The experimental plat at 
Penn Yan (see Plate XII, fig. 2) was laid out in a bearing field, 
had an area of 39x50 feet and included 15 rows. A continuation 
of the same rows formed the check, but with an interval of two 
feet between the plats to avoid influence of the cover on the check. 
The cloth in the cover was one commercial grade heavier than 
that used at Geneva. The variety grown was Sample, with a 
considerable intermixture of other varieties for purposes of cross 
pollination. 
COST OF SHADING. 
A detailed account of the cost of this experiment was not kept. 
But the cost of the cloth was about $11.00; the charge for sewing, 
including charge for rings sewed into the hem, $4.00; and the 
cost of the snaps used was $1.00. The Station already had the 
stakes and wire that were used. We estimate that the first cost 
of covering an acre in this way would be about $350. 
It probably would not be advisable to use single pieces of cloth 
more than one-tenth acre in area because the cloth is very heavy 
and inconvenient to move and because the larger the piece the 
more easily is it torn by high winds. At the Station it was 
necessary to mend rents in the material several times after high 
winds and at the end of the second season the cover was so much 
torn that it had to be thrown away. . 
