52 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



FIELD EXPEEIMENTS. 



[Field A.] 



1. Fodder Corn raised upon underdrained and exhausted 

 Lands, partly Fertilized with Single Articles of 

 Plant Food, partly without the use of any Manurial 

 Matter. 



In the First Annual Report of the Station has been described 

 the underdraining of a piece of land, one and one-tenth of an 

 acre in size, subdivided into eleven plats. The field was to 

 serve for an examination into the actions of various manurial 

 substances on the growth of corn, and the influence on the 

 character of the drainage water discharged from the drains, 

 under a different treatment of the soil. It had been used for 

 several years previous to the establishment of the Experiment 

 Station in 1882 as a meadow for the production of hay. Dur- 

 ing the spring of 1883 it was planted with corn (Longfellow 

 variety), for fodder corn, without the use of any fertilizer. 

 The same course of planting and cultivation was carried out 

 during 1884 (changing from the Longfellow to the Clark variety 

 of corn) for the purpose of exhausting the soil, as far as prac- 

 ticable, for the cultivation of corn with any prospect of remu- 

 nerative returns. 



The corn crop raised in 1884 upon these eleven plats of 

 unmanured land left no doubt about their exhausted condition, 

 as far as a further successful cultivation of corn was concerned ; 

 for the entire yield of corn fodder from this piece of land, one 

 and one-tenth of an acre in size, amounted to 5,040 pounds, 

 with a moisture of thirty per cent. 



These results encouraged the beginning of a special inquiry 

 into the chemical and physical condition of our soil, as far as 

 its relation to the production of the corn crop is concerned, as 

 well as into its particular power to retain, in a higher or lower 

 degree, various articles of plant food; i.e., its qualification to 

 prevent their passage into the drainage water. 



