1922.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 31. 13a 



Department of Botany. 



Project 13. ''Ecological study of pasture vegetation." 



Professor Osmun and Director Haskell. 



This project is co-operative with the Department of Agri- 

 culture. Its primary object is to determine the effect of 

 chemical fertilizers and lime on natural pasture vegetation, in 

 the hope of making some contribution toward solving the 

 problem of bringing run-down pastures to a state of produc- 

 tivity. In the pasture on the Tillson farm a number of plots 

 of equal area were selected, each dominated by a different type 

 of vegetation characteristic of run-down pastures. These were 

 designated as "moss area," "cinquefoil area," etc., according 

 to the principal plant growths which they embraced. The 

 attempt is being made to determine the specific effect on each 

 dominating type of vegetation of treatment given, and likewise 

 the possibility of enabling clover and the grasses to successfully 

 compete with these types of natural vegetation. 



Market-Garden Field Station. 



Project 1. "Manure economy tests." 



Professor Tompson. 



Work under this project was started in 1918, in an attempt 

 to solve the serious fertility problems developed through in- 

 creasing shortage of animal manures. Results to date indicate 

 that the amount of manure as used by market gardeners may 

 be greatly reduced in case the manure is supplemented with 

 chemical fertilizers. 



Project 5. "Growth control by means of intercropping." 



Professor Tompson. 



Work under this project represents an attempt to use cover 

 crops, intersown, in controlling the growth of certain vegetables 

 in the same way that cover crops as used in the orchard are 

 supposed to control tree growth. The fertilizer schedule in 

 this work is so arranged as to produce rapid and luxuriant 

 growth during the first part of the season, it being expected 

 that the intercrop will relieve the soil of any surplus as the 

 ripening period approaches. This project was started in the 

 spring of 1921. 



