TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 



105 



results of three years are not, of course, decisive, but the 

 straig"ht fertilizer tests made on three farms, taken tog^ether, 

 show marked increased production from nitrogen, soluble 

 phosphates and potash salts, used either singly or together, 

 and no increase, but rather a depressed yield, from raw phos- 

 phate and from lime. In this test, 50 pounds nitrogen, 100 

 pounds phosphoric acid and 150 pounds potash per acre were 

 used. Of the single elements, nitrogen showed the most 

 marked effect, while the trees dressed with stable manure (12 

 tons per acre) surpassed all others in yield. Here, you see, 

 we have in the first three years a marked effect of all three 

 fertilizer ingredients, nitrogen being preeminent. In most 

 cases, however, the increased yield, of fruit went along with 

 inferior color. 



The Massachusetts Station^'^' reports the results of twen- 

 ty years' experiment work in an apple orchard in sod after it 

 was five years old. The soil is well suited for apples, a strong, 

 retentive, gravelly loam with fairly compact subsoil, on a 

 moderate slope, and is underdrained. The experiment covers 

 five plots, each one-third of an acre. Each plot has tv/elve 

 trees, three each of Gravenstein, Baldwin, Roxbury Russet 

 and Rhode Island Greening, set in 1890. 



The plots have had broadcast each spring: (1) ten tons 

 barnyard manure, (2j one ton wood ashes, (3) nothing, (4) 

 600 pounds bone meal and 200 pounds of muriate, (5) 600 

 pounds of bone meal and 400 pounds of low-grade sulphate of 

 potash. 



For five years the whole was cultivated with hoed crops. 



Since then it has been in sod, grasses and clover, except 

 that for the first few years a small circle around each tree was 

 kept clear of weeds. The grass was cut and removed each year 

 until 1902, when the first large crop of apples was taken. 

 Since then the first crop of grass has been removed, but the 

 second left on the land. 



The trees made normal, healthy growth. 



Plot 1, having manure, had the largest yield, which, for 

 comparison, we will call 100. The relative yields are then : 



" Massachusetts Station Report 1910. Pt. II. p. 10. 



