44 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURIST. 



WM. P. BROOKS ; ASSISTANT, H. M. THOMSON. 



Soil Tests. 

 During the past season four soil tests upon the co-opera- 

 tive plan agreed upon in Washington in 1889 have been 

 carried out. Two of these were upon our own grounds, — 

 one with corn and the other with onions as the crop ; one 

 in Norwell, Plymouth County, with oats ; and one in 

 Montague, Franklin County, also with oats. 



1. Soil Test with Corn. Amherst. 

 The past is the tenth season that the experiment on this 

 field has been in progress. The crops in order of rotation 

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

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

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

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

 field is divided have received neither manure nor fertilizer ; 

 three have received but a single important manurial element, 

 — every year the same ; three have received each year two 

 important 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 produce this year an average of about 

 twelve bushels of shelled corn per acre ; and even this figure 

 is somewhat too high, owing to the fact that after this long 

 period one of the nothing plots which adjoins the plot which 

 has been yearly manured at the rate of five cords per acre 



