THE STORY OF FIELD A OF THE 



MASSACHUSETTS 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 



A REVIEW OF EXPERIMENTS WITH NITROGEN FERTILIZERS 

 By Fred W. Morse, Research Professor of Chemistry 



Field A is the field first to be devoted to fertilizer experiments at the Massa 

 chusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. The experiments have been described 

 with more or less detail in the annual reports of the Station. It is now attempted 

 to bring together the disconnected reports and summarize the results in a rela- 

 tively brief article as a background for future work on these plots. 



A clear description of the field is given in excerpts from the report by Pro- 

 fessor Manly Miles in the First Annual Report of the State Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station in 1883. 



THE FIELD PLATS 



After a careful examination of the area assigned for field experiments and a detailed study of 

 its previous history as to cropping, with reference to its present agricultural condition — in which 

 I was materially aided by the advice and suggestions that were kindly given by Hon. Levi Stock- 

 bridge, ex-president of the Agricultural College — two series of plats were selected that presented 

 the required conditions of uniformity and surface soil and exposure. 



When the trenches for laying the tiles had been dug, it was likewise found that the subsoil 

 in each series of plats was quite as uniform in its characteristics as the surface soil 



The plats are two rods wide and eight rods long, giving an area of one-tenth of an acre each. . . . 



The east tier of plats (with odd numbers') have been under ordinary field culture, and for several 

 years past in grass, which is badly "run out," the hay having been removed without the return of 

 an equivalent in the form of manure; so that their present condition, as represented by their 

 past history, is well adapted to the proposed permanent experiments 



A main drain of round tiles laid four feet deep has been made along the east side .... (four 

 feet from the line of plats), with wells of sewer pipe opposite the middle of each plat, for the pur- 

 pose of collecting samples of the drainage waters from the lateral drains which open into them. . . . 



The laterals, of two-inch round tiles, are laid through the middle of eacli plat, and have their 

 outlet in the wells twelve inches above the grade of the main drain 



The work of digging trenches for the tile drains was begun April IGth, and the laterals on the 

 east tier of plats were completed May 10th 



.. . EXPERIMENTS WITH INDIAN CORN 



In accordance with the plan of experiments, . . . corn was grown on the east series of plats .... 

 without manure, and under the same conditions as to management, for the purpose of testing the 

 relative fertility of the plats. . . . The plats, of one-tenth of an acre each, are two rods wide and 

 eight rods long, and they are separated by a space four feet wide, on which no crop is grown. 



The soil is a friable loam, with a retentive subsoil of clay that is nearly filled with gravel and 

 small stones in the lower strata.^ 



There is a remarkable uniformity in the soil and subsoil of the different plats, both as to ap- 

 parent fertility and physical condition, with the exception of plat 0, where a large manure pile 

 had formerly been made 



In all operations of ploughing, cultivating, planting, hoeing and harvesting, the work was 

 done lengthwise of the field, and consequently across the plats, so that each plat received the same 

 treatment, as far as possible 



I Later renumbered 1 to 10 and designated Field A. 



' The Bureau of Soils classified this soil as Norfolk sandy loam but changed it later to Merrimac. 



"Soils of the United States." U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. Soils, Bui. 55, p. 158. 



