1900.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 11 



have been corn, corn, oats, grass and clover, grass and 

 clover, corn followed by mustard as a catch-crop, rye, soy 

 beans, white mustard, corn, and this year corn once more. 

 During all this time four of the fourteen plots into which the 

 field is divided have received neither manure nor fertilizer ; 

 three having but a single important manurial element, nitro- 

 gen, phosphoric acid and potash, — every year the same; 

 three have received each year two of these elements ; one 

 has received all three yearly ; and one each has received 

 yearly lime, plaster and farm-yard manure. It will be seen 

 that the greater part of the field has remained either entirely 

 unmanured or has had but a partial manuring, and it will be 

 readily understood that the degree of exhaustion of most of 

 the plots is considerable. The nothing plots produced this 

 year an average of 4.6 bushels of shelled corn per acre and 

 767.5 pounds stover; and even this figure is somewhat mis- 

 representative, owing to the fact that after this long period 

 two of the nothing plots which adjoin plots which have been 

 yearly well manured begin to feel the effect of the high fer- 

 tility of their neighbors, although separated from them by 

 strips three and one-half feet wide. 



The Effect of the Fertilizers. 

 The table shows clearly the marked difl'erences undoubt- 

 edly due to the variation now eleven years continued in the 

 fertilizer treatment. The fertilizers wherever employed are 

 applied at the following rates per acre ; nitrate of soda, 160 

 pounds (furnishing nitrogen) ; dissolved bone-black, 320 

 pounds (furnishing phosphoric acid) ; muriate of potash, 

 160 pounds (furnishing potash) ; land plaster, 160 pounds ; 

 lime, 160 pounds ; and cow manure, 5 cords. All plots, it 

 must be remembered, received also an application of lime 

 at the rate of 1 ton per acre, in addition to the materials 

 named in the table. 



