56 EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



The crops of this year are of course a measure only of the 

 residual fertility from previous manuring. The yield was 

 heavy, but, as will be noticed, it was not uniformly favorable 

 to either system of application, although on the whole the plots 

 to which the mamu'e has been applied during the winter gave 

 the heavier yields. These experiments to date do not support 

 the view that the waste following winter application of manure 

 is sufficiently serious to offset the saving in labor, as compared 

 with the system of double handling which storing in heaps to 

 be spread in the spring involves. Our records indicate that 

 spring application costs at the rate of about $4.80 per acre 

 more than the single handling, where the manure is spread when 

 hauled during the winter. 



X. — Nitrate of Soda for Rowen. 



This experiment was designed to determine whether the 

 application of nitrate of soda made soon after the first crop is 

 cut will give a profitable increase in rowen. The field, although 

 originally seeded to pure timothy in 1897, now gives crops 

 largely mixed with clover. The total area is a little more than 

 three acres. For the first crop we apply fertilizers at the fol- 

 lowing rates per acre : nitrate of soda, 150 pounds ; muriate of 

 potash, 200 pounds ; fine-ground bone, 400 pounds. 



For the purpose of the experiment with nitrate of soda, eight 

 equal plots have been laid off, each containing almost exactly 

 one-third of an acre. Alternate plots have annually received a 

 top-dressing of nitrate of soda after the removal of the first crop 

 during the past seven years. For the past four years, in order 

 to facilitate the more even distribution of the nitrate, it has 

 been mixed with sufficient basic slag meal to furnish an applica- 

 tion of the latter at the rate of 400 pounds per acre ; and to 

 equalize conditions on the alternate plots to which no nitrate is 

 applied, the slag meal is applied to all of these at the same rate. 

 The results obtained the past season are presented in the 

 table : — 



