168 REPORT OF THE First ASSISTANT OF THE 
These results are in accord with those obtained in previous cp 
years, ‘although the seasons have differed somewhat, and an © 
encouraging fact is that no mature cane of any of the better — 
varieties has been found that did not contain a good percentage 
of cane sugar. 
'’ In studies of sugar cane and sorghum soils the observation has 
been ‘made that a good proportion of lime in the soils or in the 
fertilizers applied usually accompanies a good sugar crop. With 
the view of obtaining information on this point, one-half of each 
row of sorghum was top-dressed, as soon as planted, with crude 
precipitated carbonate of lime at the rate of 4,000 pounds per 
acre, and from the arrangement of the rows this made two limed 
strips running across the field with intervening and adjacent 
strips without lime. In regard to yield of cane and time of 
maturity, there was no noticeable difference between the strips, 
and the yield of seed it was not possible to determine. Analyses 
of juices from forty canes (twelve varieties) of like maturity, 
twenty from the limed and twenty from the unlimed strips, showed 
an average of ten per cent more sugar in the canes from the limed 
strips; the average of cane sugar in the one lot being 11.31 per 
cent, and in the other 10.28 per cent. So far as a single experi- 
ment goes, this result is in accord with the idea that an applica- 
tion of some form of lime is of value to the sorghum crop on 
soils that contain little lime or in which the magnesia exceeds the 
lime. Every sample of soil from the Station farm that has been 
analyzed has contained less lime than magnesia, the average in all 
the top soils being'.65 per cent of lime (Ca. O) and 1.21 per cent of 
magnesia (Mg. 0). 
FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 
On field G of the Station farm, an even and level field (see map 
in seventh annual report), the soil of which might be characterized 
as a clay loam with some gravel,* twenty-one adjacent parallel 
strips were staked off, each of an area of one-twentieth acre. 
Oats were sown on this portion of the field, at the rate of 
seventy-seven pounds to the acre, and on alternate strips crude 
chemicals were sown, having thus an untreated strip on two 
* This soil contains only a trace of sulphuric*acid and a small amount of 
lime. 
