EXPERIMENTS WITH NITROGEN FERTILIZERS 3 



"Longfellow corn" was planted June 2, in hills, forty-four inches apart each way .... As the 

 first and second days of June were the fir-^^t really warm days of the season, the late planting did 



not at the time seem to be a serious disadvantage 



The plats were quite free from weeds on the start, and the repeated cultivation and hoeing 

 left the crop perfectly clean in its subsequent growth. 



On the night of September 3 a hard frost severely injured the corn .... as we were dependent 

 on the farm for labor, we were obliged to wait until the 7th inst., when the crop was cut close to 



the ground and put in stooks to cure The corn was husked October IS . ... The corn and 



stalks were hauled to the barn and separately weighed 



It should be noted that from an error in marking and planting, made by the unskilled hands 

 assigned me, it became necessary to transplant several rows of corn on plats 13, 15 and 17,' .... 

 the transplanted hills were checked in their growth and never fully matured. This will, in part 

 at least, account for the lower yield of both corn and stalks on these plat.s. 



Professor Miles was not connected with the experiments after the first year. 

 The arrangement of the plots and the drains has been unchanged and the method 

 of cultivation across the plots has been maintained. Until 1896, the experiments 

 were directed and reported by Dr. Charles A. Goessmann, the first director of 

 the Experiment Station. In 1884 he reported: 



During the past season the field has been planted again with corn, for corn fodder, without 



the application of manure of any description the corn (variety: Clark) was planted in drills, 



two and one-half feet apart, at the rate of two bushels per acre, on the 24th of May .... The plants 

 started well in the spring, yet began soon to fall behind, in general appearance, other fodder corn- 

 fields in the vicinity, upon fertilized lands. 



At the beginning of blooming it turned gradually yellow, failed to produce grain-bearing 

 cobs 



The corn was cut on the first of September and stacked in the field for drying. The entire 

 yield of corn fodder from this piece of land, one and one-tenth of an acre in size, amounted to 

 5,040 pounds, with a moisture of thirty per cent. 



The soil is evidently in suitable condition for studying the special effects of various forms and 

 kinds of plant food .... 



SOIL AND FERTILIZER TEST WITH CORN 



Corn was the crop grown for the next five years upon these plots. A variety 

 of flint corn known as Clark was used each year, and the seed was planted in 

 hills 12 to 14 inches apart in rows 3 feet and 3 inches apart. The time of planting 

 was in the latter part of May each year, and the crop was cut in the earlier part 

 of September. Under the conditions of the ex-periinent, until the season of 1889, 

 the corn did not mature ears sufficiently to be husked and was consequently 

 weighed from each of the plots as fodder, after being cured in shocks until October. 



The use of fertilizers was begun in 1885. The amount of each fertihzer and its 

 allocation to the different plots was varied somewhat each year until 1889. 

 The arrangement of plots and their fertilizers is shown by a chart and the yields 

 of corn are given in Table 1. 



The table includes the yields for 1883 but omits those of 1884 because in that 

 year the crop from the field was weighed as a whole and then divided equally 

 among the plots. The amount, 458 pounds per plot, was less than any yield of 

 the previous year. 



Only one kind of fertilizer was used upon any plot in 1885, and Plot of the 

 previous years was omitted from the records until 1889. 



» In Table 1, these plats are numbered 7, 8, and 9. 



