FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 



[Field A.] 



I. Fodder Corn raised upon Worn-out Meadow Lands 



PARTLY fertilized WITH OnE OR TwO SPECIAL ARTICLES 



OF Plant Food, partly without the Use of any 

 Manurial Matter. 



The observations recorded below extend already over a 

 period of five years.* The field selected for the experi- 

 ment was utilized for a series of years previous to 1882 as a 

 meadow for the production of hay. The annual yield of that 

 crop had suffered at that time a serious decline in quantity 

 and quality. During the spring of 1883 it was planted with 

 corn for the production of fodder corn, without the use of 

 any manurial matter. 



The same course of planting and of general treatment was 

 carried out during the year 1884. The corn fodder raised 

 in that year left no doubt about the serious exhaustion of 

 the soil, as far as its fitness for a further successful cultiva- 

 tion of corn fodder was concerned, for the entire yield of 

 that crop amounted only to 5,040 pounds per acre, with a 

 moisture of thirty per cent. The soil had evidently reached 

 a condition which promised to prove favorable for a special 

 investigation, as far as the extent and the particular charac- 

 ter of its exhaustion on plant food was concerned, whether 

 the failure of the crop was due to a general exhaustion of 



* For details, see preceding reports, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887. 

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