28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Some allege that this green manuring may favor cut- 

 worms in the soil. Such has not been our experience. 

 Last year the only piece which was fairly clear of cut-worms 

 was one which had rye on it through the previous winter. 



But what about forms of plant food for tobacco ? 



I hardly need to say that chlorides or muriates are every- 

 where regarded as hurtful. Muriates often increase the 

 yield, but at the expense of quality. A certain very small 

 amount of chlorine, not more than 5 pounds to the acre, is 

 necessary to the plant, and it certainly can stand more. 

 The ash of wrapper leaves grown with fertilizer chemicals 

 contained only about .5 per cent of chlorine in our experi- 

 ments, but where stable manure had been used for five years 

 there was over 10 per cent of chlorine, yet the tobacco 

 raised on this manure was of good quality. Certainly where 

 stable manure is used there will be more chlorine in the 

 crop than where only chemicals are applied. 



Our own experience at Poquonock has made us some- 

 what distrust sulphates. The tobacco from a plot to which 

 sulphate of ammonia had been yearly applied was for a term 

 of five years of poor quality, and that from the plot dressed 

 with high-grade sulphate of potash for five years was also 

 comparatively poor. Others, I know, have had excellent 

 results with high-grade sulphate. Your own station got 

 good results with it, but ranked it a little below cotton-hull 

 ashes or carbonate of potash. 



I think it is safe to say that considerable doses of acid 

 phosphate, year after year, are likely to injure the quality 

 of leaf. 



For the rest, what I have to say is based on the results 

 of five years' experiments on a typical light tobacco soil at 

 Poquonock, set with Connecticut Havana tobacco. You 

 probably know in general the plan of that work. The field 

 and barn are owned by the Connecticut Tobacco Experi- 

 ment Company, a corporation composed mainly of tobacco 

 growers ; and its objects are to study methods of raising, 

 curing and fermenting New England tobacco. The crop is 

 raised by an experienced tobacco grower. Each plot, of 

 one-twentieth of an acre, was fertilized yearly in the same 

 way for five years ; each crop was kept separate in the 



