20 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 347 



The effectiveness of the chemical appears to be distinctly correlated with the 

 soil moisture, best results being obtained with low rates of application in wet 

 soils. Control is not perfect, but germination of the few surviving weed seeds 

 seems to be sufficiently retarded to permit grass seed, sown eight days after 

 treatment, to make well-established turf. 



In established lawns heavily infested with crab grass seed, enough of the seeds 

 were killed to warrant further studies of rate and technique of application. 



Increasing the Iron Content of Hay Grown on Soils Producing Nutritional 

 Anemia in Massachusetts Livestock. (Karol J. Kucinski, John G. Archibald 

 and Walter S. Eisenmenger.) During the winter of 1933-34 a peculiar disease of 

 cattle called "neck ail," which had given considerable trouble for a good many 

 years to Massachusetts farmers living around Buzzards Bay and vicinity, was 

 first brought to the attention of the Agricultural Experiment Station. 



After a careful investigation, the ailment was diagnosed as a "nutritional 

 anemia." If affected animals were treated with a "drench" of ferric ammonium 

 citrate, recovery to a healthy condition was soon noted. From preliminary work, 

 it was found that both the soil and the grass grown upon it were exceedingly low 

 in iron. It appears, therefore, that the malady is due to the lack of available 

 iron in the sandy soils of this affected region which makes the iron content of the 

 forage very low. 



Typical soils of the affected region, known to have produced nutritional anemia 

 in cattle, were brought into the greenhouse, and known amounts of iron salts 

 added to them. Mixed hay grasses were grown on them and analyzed for iron 

 content. They showed an increase of 21.8 to 64.9 percent over the amount of 

 iron found in the controls. The increase of available iron (5 percent oxalic acid 

 extract) in these same soils after treatment ranged from 27.4 to 651.5 percent 

 over the controls. 



The Absorption by Food Plants of Chemical Elements Important in Human 

 Nutrition. (Walter S. Eisenmenger and Karol J. Kucinski.) Lettuce and cab- 

 bage were grown on soil to which the following cations were added at the rate of 

 500 parts per million per individual plot; sodium, potassium, magnesium, and 

 calcium. The anions, chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulfate and phosphate, were 

 used on additional plots at the rate of 200 parts per million. 



An endeavor is being made to ascertain whether or not those elements found 

 in relatively large amounts in sea water are taken up by the plant in greater 

 quantities than those present in relatively low amounts in sea water. 



COOPERATIVE TOBACCO INVESTIGATIONS 



Conducted by the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department 



of Agriculture, in Cooperation with the Massachusetts Agricultural 



Experiment Station 



C. V. Kightlinger, U. S. D. A., In Charge 



Black Root-Rot. (C. V. Kightlinger.) The purpose of this project is to find 

 strains of Havana Seed tobacco which may be acceptable under Connecticut 

 Valley conditions for resistance to black root-rot and for type of plant, type and 

 quality of leaf, gross yielding capacity and other properties that may be necessary 

 to make the strains acceptable to tobacco growers and cigar manufacturers. It 

 was proposed to accomplish this by a fourfold plan or such portion of the plan 

 as might be necessary; viz., (1) To breed and test numerous strains of Havana 



