A FERTILIZER EXPERIMENT WITH ASPARAGUS. 243 



be noted that the outside plots 1 and 21 suffered much larger shrinkage 

 than the succeeding plots, and that no injury was apparent after passing 

 the middle of the field. In the second and fifth columns the maximum 

 crop of 1914 was compared mth the first full crop cut in 1910, and the 

 percentages of gain are shown to be very much alike after passing the 

 first two or three plots, which were worst affected by rust. The third 

 and last columns show the percentages of shrinkage when the 1915 crop 

 was compared with that of 1914. In general, the percentages are small, 

 and the shrinlcages are fairly uniform. 



Table VI. ■ — Percentages of Gains and Losses in Different Years. 



1910 to 1910 to 1914 to 

 1911. 1914. 1915. 



—11 

 —10 



—7 



—5 

 —7 

 —5 

 —6 

 —9 

 —6 

 —10 

 —9 

 —12 

 —12 

 -10 

 —6 

 —9 

 —7 

 -13 

 —7 



1910 to 1910 to 1914 to 

 1911. 1914. 1915. 



The question arose in the course of the experiments whether any of the 

 plots produced more early asparagus in proportion to the total crop which 

 might be due to the fertilizers applied. Each year's crop was carefully 

 charted in ten-day periods by Norton for such a comparison. The charts 

 for 1910 and 1914, drawn by R. L. Cofiin, are published here, and it will 

 be seen that there were no plots where the first ten days produced pro- 

 portionally greater weights of stalks compared with other plots than the 

 total crops show. In other words, large yields in the first ten days were 

 followed by continued large yields throughout the season. 



