EX]'EKLME.\T STATION" IfKl'OKT. 491 



EXPERIMENTS IN SHADING. 



I->ut little has been done the present season in the matter of .-had- 

 ing. While previous experiments have shown that an artificial cover 

 may he of coiisiiK'ralih^ service to certain crops, this important feature 

 of the e.xperinu'iu work has been set aside owing to pressure of other 

 things. 



The use of lath-shading* (with spaces between the lath equally 

 the width of the lath — that is, half-shading) has jiroved very effective 

 with nasturtiums the present season. These plants often have their 

 foliage burned by the hot sun, and a small amount of shading will 

 prevent this. In case of the canary-bird nasturtium {Trop(voluiu 

 Canariense) , the lath-shade made all the difference between plants 

 with burned leaves and no flowers and those with sound foliage and 

 abundance of bloom. The lath frames were placed high up above 

 the plants, so that they did not interfere with the climbing of the 

 plants or the care of the ground al-ound them. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH JAPANESE REDBUD. 



In 1896 two dozen plants of the Japanese redbud (Cercis Jajiniii(-i) 

 were set out in a single row in a portion of tlu' Experiment Area 

 devoted to ornamental ])lants. In a visit to the nursery from which 

 the plants were afterward obtained it was determined that the cercis 

 was badly attacked by a leaf-spot fungus (Cercospora cercidicola E.) 

 which produced large, circular, brown spots iu the handsome leaves, 

 which afterward died and fell to the ground. In September of the 

 first season of the experiment after faithful spraying of certain plants 

 with fungicides, a visit was made to the nursery from which the 

 plants had been obtained. At that time the redbuds, by the thou- 

 sands, in the nursery rows, were nearly all leafless from the attack 

 of the leaf-spot. The difference between the plants and those taken 

 to the Experiment Grounds, many miles away, was very striking. 

 This is a forceful illustration of the healthfiilness that may follow 

 the removal of plants from a locality where its kind has been grown 

 for years in large numbers and a disease has developed to a serious 

 extent. As the plants experimented u]ion were all comparatively 



* The method of making lalh frames is described in the annual report for 1897, 

 page 344. 



