Bushel Club, in 1948. all used fer- 

 tilizers to which magnesium had 

 been added; on the other hand, nine 

 of the last 18 growers did not use 

 such fertilizers. Make sure your 

 potato fertilizer contains magnesium. 

 F. S. Prince, P. T. Blood, 

 L. T. Kardos, and R. Feuer 



Caution Needed in Use of Borax 

 in Potato Fertilizers. It has been 

 definitely established that potatoes 

 need small amounts of boron in 

 order to grow properly. The amount 

 required, however, is very small and 

 injury can result from applying very 

 little more than is needed for good 

 growth. For example, on the Worth- 

 ington loam soil at Colebrook. which 

 was found to contain an amount of 

 water-soluble boron which was equi- 

 valent to 3.7 lbs. of borax per acre. 

 an application of 5 lbs. and of 20 

 lbs. of borax per acre with the fer- 

 tilizer in the bands was tried out. 



The application of 5 lbs. gave a 

 remarkable increase the first year 

 whereas, the 20-lb. rate stimulated 

 yields but to a lesser degree than the 

 5-lb. treatment. During the second 



and third years, continued applica- 

 tion of the borax at the two rates 

 showed no increase or a slight de- 

 crease in yield for the 5-lb. appli- 

 cation and a large decrease in yield 

 for the 20-lb. application. 



In another series of plots in which 

 crimson clover as a green manure 

 crop preceded potatoes, the first ap- 

 plication of 20 lbs. of borax in the 

 potato fertilizer resulted in a large 

 decrease in yield of tubers. Addi- 

 tional experimentation is necessary 

 to determine the significance of this 

 result; but it would appear that the 

 crimson clover had built up the 

 available supply of boron so that the 

 20-lb. application was injurious. 



In New Hampshire there are some 

 potato soils which are lower in avail- 

 able boron and others which are 

 higher in it than in the soil on which 

 these experiments were conducted. 

 Therefore, a boron diagnosis of each 

 potato farm should be made before 

 definite recommendations can be 

 made for the use of borax in potato 

 fertilizers. 



F. S. Prince, P. T. Blood, 

 L. T. Kardos, and R. Feuer 



Dairying 



Grass Silage Prevents the Loss of 

 Nutrients during Harvesting. The 

 success that a dairyman has in get- 

 ting his hay crop stored in the best 

 possible condition determines to a 

 considerable extent his net income 

 during the winter-feeding period. In 

 order to learn more about the effects 

 of different methods of storage on 

 the feeding value of a forage, com- 

 parable lots were stored in the silo 

 without preservative, were mow- 

 cured without supplemental heat, and 

 were field cured. 



On the dry basis the silage con- 

 tained 2 per cent more protein than 

 the mow-cured hay, while the mow- 

 cured hay contained 1.5 per cent 



20 



more than the field-cured hay. The 

 silage was also higher in energy. As 

 determined in another experiment, 

 the digestibility of both the protein 

 and energy of the silage, when fed 

 as the sole ration, was considerably 

 lower than that of either of the hays. 

 However, the silage produced much 

 greater gains than either of the hays 

 when fed free choice along with two 

 lbs. per day of a concentrate mixture 

 to growing dairy heifers. This re- 

 sult was obtained in spite of a con- 

 siderably lower nutrient intake from 

 the silage. 



These results indicate the possi- 

 bility that the full nutritive value of 

 forage which is ensiled without pre- 



