32 a EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



big heap in the field when hauled from the pits, to be distrib- 

 uted and worked into the soil in the spring, have been under 

 comparison. This investigation continued without modification 

 in general plan, the manure being applied in equal amounts 

 annually for the twelve years, 1899-1911. The manure was 

 used in both methods at the rate of 20 tons per acre, weighed 

 when taken out of the pits. The crop yields were not uniformly 

 favorable to either plan, but on the average of the twelve 

 years, there being five similar experiments each year, there was 

 no great difference in the yields obtained. 



Since 1911 the plots used in this investigation have been 

 annually planted without the addition of either manure or 

 fertilizers. The results have shown considerable superiority in 

 yield on the plots to which, during the first stage of the experi- 

 ment, the manure was first put in a big heap and spread in the 

 spring. Not only has the yield been greater, but the crops 

 have made a quicker start, have kept ahead of those on the 

 plots on which the manure was spread during the winter 

 throughout the season, and have ripened a considerable number 

 of days earlier. The results during the past five years, there- 

 fore (1912-16), indicate a decidedly greater residual effect from 

 the manure applied during the earlier years of the experiment 

 on the plots where the manure was held in a big heap until 

 spring and then spread; in other words, the results indicate 

 there must have been a considerable wastage from the manure 

 spread on the other plots during the winter. That, neverthe- 

 less, the crops on the plots to which manure was applied during 

 the winter were equal to those produced by spring application 

 is doubtless accounted for by the fact that the manure was 

 applied during the progress of the experiment in quantities so 

 much in excess of the immediate requirements of the crop that 

 the yield in spite of some wastage was maintained at the same 

 rate as on the plots from which there was less wastage. 



Department of Botany. 

 The general lines of work in this department, as in most 

 others, with such modifications as are suggested by develop- 

 ments in the State and are the natural outgrowth of the results 

 of work and progress, have been the same during the past year 



