102 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



EEPORT OF THE AGRICULTURISTS. 



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



The work of the agricultural division of the Experiment 

 Station has followed the general lines of earlier years. It 

 has for its chief object to obtain light on some of the 

 numerous conditions determining productiveness, chiefly as 

 aflected by diiferent manures and fertilizers used alone and 

 in a wide variety of combinations. The questions connected 

 with the use of manures and fertilizers are self-evidently of 

 vital importance in our agriculture, which cannot, as in 

 some of the newer States of the Union, depend upon the 

 accumulated fertilit}^ of ages. Equall}^ self-evident to every 

 intelligent mind must be the fact that the solution of even 

 the simplest problem connected with the use of manures is 

 a matter of much inherent difficulty, so numerous are the 

 conditions which determine production, — conditions, too, 

 many of which are bej'Ond control. It is clearly perceived 

 tliat nmcli caution should be exercised in drawino- con- 

 elusions from the results of experiments ; that field results 

 especially should be tested again and again, under varying 

 conditions of soil and season ; that such results obtained on 

 plots inevitably varying somewhat in natural fertiht}- should 

 be checked by results obtained on equal quantities of thor- 

 oughly mixed soils from the same plots under conditions 

 made as nearly normal as possible ; as well as by vegetation 

 experiments in plots, where all the conditions of moisture, 

 — exposure, etc., are most perfectl}'" under control. Our 

 work, therefore along these lines includes three distinct 

 methods of experiment : first, plot experiments in the open 

 field ; second, closed plot experiments (plung-ed cylinders)" 

 with mixed soil ; and third, vegetation experiments in pots. 



