periment Station in 1903 as Agricul- 

 turist, and later became Agronomist 

 and head of Agronomy, a position he 

 held until 1933. F. S. Prince was em- 

 ployed in 1913, but after five years left 

 to enter extension work in Ohio. He 

 returned to New Hampshire in 1925 

 and in 1933 was appointed head of 

 Agronomy. 



The glacial origin of most New 

 Hampshire soils had produced a vari- 

 ety of soil types and since dairying 

 was the leading agricultural enterprise, 

 soils research was clearly a fundamen- 

 tal need. Cooperative research between 

 Prince and P. T. Blood in Agronomy, 

 and T. G. Phillips, G. P. Percival and 

 others in Agricultural and Biological 

 Chemistry over a period of many years 

 proved very productive. They demon- 

 strated higher yields from pastures and 

 hayland when fertilizers and lime were 

 used appropriately and legumes were 

 introduced. They showed that grass 

 hay cut before the bloom stage, in 

 June, had some 50 percent more di- 

 gestible protein, thus more protein per 

 acre than hay harvested in mid-July — 

 a practice that revolutionized haying 

 in the state. Variety tests of cereal 

 grains, legumes, and potatoes led to 

 recommendations of varieties appro- 

 priate to New Hampshire conditions. 

 Plots on Paxton soils where winter rye 

 was used as a cover crop following 

 potatoes yielded 13 percent more po- 

 tatoes than plots with no cover crop 

 and had less sheet erosion. Spring 

 floods of 1936 had done considerable 

 damage in the state due to sheet erosion 

 and gullying of pasture and farm land. 

 In one river valley, nearly 50 percent 

 of the area on 26 farms was covered 

 with 16-20 inches of silt. 



A detailed survey of soil types by 

 counties, begun in 1935, involved 

 Station personnel and by agreement 



the U.S. Bureau of Soils and the Soil 

 Conservation Service, but soil map- 

 ping in the state was not completed 

 until 1977. The surveys have been 

 used to locate suitable soil types for 

 various crops, for planning soil con- 

 servation practices on individual 

 farms, and for making pertinent land 

 information available to contractors, 

 town governments and state agencies. 



Animal Husbandry 



A long-term experiment in applied 

 genetics in sheep breeding, and stud- 

 ies in comparative basal metabolism 

 characterize the research in Animal 

 Husbandry between 1920 and 1940. E. 

 G. Ritzman was in charge of the work. 

 He and C. B. Davenport, Director, De- 

 partment of Genetics, Carnegie Insti- 

 tution of Washington, D.C. outlined a 

 cooperative sheep breeding project. 

 Southdown and Rambouillet sheep 

 were crossed, then selected over sev- 

 eral generations for rapid growth, 

 market conformation and wool qual- 

 ity. Later, the multi-nippled trait was 

 introduced into the flock from six 

 animals donated by Alexander Graham 

 Bell. As a result of 33 years of in- 

 breeding Bell had developed a breed 

 of sheep possessing from four to six 

 functional nipples and a high degree 

 of fecundity. These traits, plus twin- 

 ning, were then included in the se- 

 lection program. Ultimately, they de- 

 veloped a strain with good growth and 

 conformation, a high incidence of ewes 

 with four or more functional nipples 

 and a corresponding increase in milk 

 yield, a high incidence of twinning, 

 and wool of excellent quality. The 

 Agricultural Experiment Station at 

 Rothamstead, England obtained two 

 rams from this stock, and a four- 

 nippled ram was used on a Suffolk 

 flock in Kansas. Requests for breeding 

 stock were received from China and 

 different parts of the U.S. 



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