CENTRAL TRIAL STATION. I3I 



western Nebraska, but our plants from this seed were so badly in- 

 jured last winter that we probably lost nearly half of those grow- 

 ing in the forest garden. I believe this injury shows that the seed 

 which we supposed was of the hardier forms came from some mild 

 section, as, for instance, the Western slope of the Rockys, where the 

 climate is quite mild, and I do not believe that it is a sufficient rea- 

 son for discarding this evergreen, which I think is extremely hardy 

 and useful when the stock of it is obtained from the best sources. 



Our experience with the lawns about the campus has led me to 

 believe that the best practice for keeping up the lawns here is to 

 apply slaughter house tankage, containing a high per cent of nitro- 

 gen, at the rate of i,ooo lbs. per acre, putting it on as soon as the 

 grass starts in the spring; and where lawns are in poor condition 

 in addition to this put on about an inch of fine, rich loam. We 

 have found that the general use of stable manure on our lawns not 

 only makes them unsightly in winter, but frequently results in 

 injury to them where the manure has not been fully decayed and 

 lies in lumps. I would not be understood, however, as recom- 

 mending this for general use on farms where there is a plentiful 

 supply of fine, well decayed material that can give no trouble, but 

 for general use on city and park lawns it will often be found that 

 this is the cheapest as well as the most satisfactory method in 

 practice. 



The piece of land on which we have raised onions for eighteen 

 consecutive years, gave us a good crop again this year, yielding at 

 the rate of about 700 bushels per acre. Our practice with this piece 

 of land is to plow it in autumn, as soon as the crop is out of the 

 way, turning in a good coat of well rotted manure, and in the spring 

 disc the land and sow it as soon as the soil can be worked, paying 

 much attention to getting the seed in early. 



The Beta grape, which we have referred to in previous reports, 

 was left on the trellis during last winter, which was almost unprece- 

 dented for its severity. These vines had no protection whatever. 

 They were pruned in the early spring and bore a good heavy crop 

 of fruit and were apparently uninjured in any way by their ex- 

 posure: While this fruit is not of first class quality, yet it is suffi- 

 ciently good to be extremely useful both for dessert purposes and for 

 cooking on the average Minnesota farm. We have raised several 

 hundred seedlings of it, one of which we have selected for propa- 

 gation, as we believe it is rather better in quality than the Beta. 



