ANNUAL REPORT, 1941 7 



The practice cf field renting enables Massachusetts farmers to enlarge their 

 farm business and thus to increase their family income. A loss of these areas 

 would reduce individual farm business to an uneconomic size. Rented fields 

 which are under cultivation usualK- are satisfactorily maintained but practices 

 are not equal to those on owned land. Conservation practices on rented hay and 

 pasture land were m^uch poorer than on owned land. Eighty-five percent of 

 rented fields were used for hay or pasture. Nine out of ten of the field-renting 

 leases were oral as compared to two out of three where whole farms were rented. 

 Of the part owners who were renting fields. 97 percent received no supervision or 

 direction from the land owners regarding the use of the land. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRONOMY 

 Walter S. Eisenmenger in Charge 



Tobacco Projects. (Walter S. Eisenmenger and Karol J. Kucinski.) 



Brown Root-Rot of Tobacco. Experience has shown that the presence of high 

 amounts of lignin in the crop preceding tobacco 's generally associated with the 

 presence of brown root-rot of tobacco. It is w-ell known that the lignin content 

 of plants increases from the seedling stage to maturity. With this in mind, 

 twelve crops — tobacco, artichoke, corn, oats, buckwheat, barley, rape, millet, 

 rye, wheat, sudan grass, and sorghum — were all sown at the same time, and one 

 third of the area of each was plowed under at three different stages of maturity 

 of the plants. Tobacco was planted on all areas the following year. 



W hen those plants having a relatively high lignin content, such as sudan grass, 

 sorghum, corn, millet, rye, barley, and oats, were plowed under at maturity, the 

 tobacco grown on these plots the following year had lower yields and lower crop 

 indexes than tobacco grown following the same plants plowed under before they 

 reached maturity, ^^'ith those plants low in lignin, such as tobacco, artichoke, 

 and rape, the stage of maturity of the plant did not produce the same effects 

 as in the case of the high-lignin plants. 



The Effect of Additions of Plant Tissue to Tobacco Land. A corn crop preceding 

 tobacco is injurious to the following tobacco crop. In order to find out whether 

 this injurious effect is due to the presence of abnormal amounts of fibrous tissue 

 or to the removal of nutrients consequent on the growth of the corn, corn stover, 

 in pieces about one inch long and in amounts comparable to that usually grown 

 on a given area, was applied to soil which was to be planted to tobacco. A de- 

 crease in both yield and quality of the tobacco crop resulted. 



These results are no doubt traceable to the high lignin content of the corn 

 stover applied, because it is generally known that organic matter of this sort has 

 a tendency to lower the available nitrogen in the scil to which it is applied. 



Tobacco Experiments with Application to Soil of Commercial Organic Materials. 

 It has been suggested that the source of organic compounds might possibly deter- 

 mine the yield and quality of the subsequent tobacco crop. Sugar, carbon (char- 

 coal), dr}- skim milk, and starch were the materials selected for comparison. 

 They were applied at the rate of two tons to the acre. A fifth plot, to which 

 nothing was added, was included as a check. 



There was little difference in the action of these different materials. The 

 applications of charcoal or carbon gave the highest yield, as was anticipated from 

 the appearance of the crop in the field; but the quality of this tobacco lowered 

 the crop index value. 



