96 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



The plots, three in numl)er, from which the average of 

 the so-called no-nitrogen plots was obtained, have received 

 no nitrogen-containing manure or fertilizer since 1884. The 

 past season, therefore, is the sixteenth since these plots have 

 been manured with anything containing nitrogen. The fact 

 that after this long period potatoes on a clover sod give a 

 crop amounting to 95.3 per cent, of that on plots which 

 have yearly received a fair amount of manure or fertilizer 

 containing nitrogen is certainly one of much significance, 

 and strikingly illustrates the advantage which may be de- 

 rived from the gro\vth of clover under ap})ropriate conditions. 

 The actual yields of potatoes this year, although not large, 

 were good ; the no-nitrogen plots giving a yield at the rate 

 of 209 bushels to the acre, and the nitrogen plots an average 

 yield at the rate of 219.3 bushels per acre. 



HI. — The Relative Value of Muriate and High-grade 

 Sulfate of Potash. 



The experiments on which the following statements con- 

 cerning relative value are leased have been carried out on 

 Field B, and have been in progress since 1892. The potash 

 salts named are used in equal quantities, each continuously 

 upon one-half of the plots, while all the plots have received 

 a yearly application of fine-ground lione at the rate of 600 

 pounds per acre throughout the entire period. The potash 

 salts were used yearly, at the rate of 400 pounds per acre, from 

 1892 to 1899. During the past year they have been applied 

 at the rate of 250 i:)ounds per acre. Full details concerning 

 these experiments will be found in recent annual reports. 



During the time that this experiment has continued the 

 following crops have been grown on the field : potatoes, field 

 corn, sweet corn, grasses, oats and vetch, barley and vetch, 

 winter rye, clovers of various kinds, sugar beets, soy beans 

 and cabbages. Crops have generally been good. Among 

 these crops the potatoes,* clovers, cabbages and soy beans 



* Potatoes have been grown upon our grounds under conditions making it possible 

 to compare the yield of sulfate of potash with that of muriate of potash in fourteen 

 different experiments ; and as the average of all these experiments, if we represent 

 the yield of sulfate of potash by 100, that of muriate is represented by the number 

 94.1, and in almost all instances the potatoes on the sulfate have been richer in starch 

 and of better eating quality than those raised on the muriate. 



