June. 1940] AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN N. H. 37 



Annual growth in Coos county was estimated at 44,753 cords. This 

 surve}' applies to small holdings in the towns in the Connecticut val- 

 ley and parts of some towns in the Androscoggin valley. 



(Purnell Fund) 

 Home Economics 



An investigation of textile fabrics from the retail consumer's point 

 of view is being conducted in cooperation with other northeastern 

 experiment stations. Project leaders and their associates in each of 

 the states collect swatches of fabrics of specified size from consumers 

 who are making them into Avomen's or children's garments, and at 

 the same time obtain information relating to the purchase of the 

 fabrics. These are sent to the textile chemistry laboratory at the 

 Pennsylvania State college, which serves as the testing laboratory 

 for the project. 



In this state 67 samples have been collected for analysis. Reports 

 of these tests have now been returned and have been placed in the 

 hands of the women who furnished the material. The second step 

 in this cooperative project is that the garments, when they have 

 passed their days of usefulness, are to be sent to the laboratory for 

 further study of the wearability. (Purnell Fund) 



Horticulture 

 Apple Fertilizers 



In three orchards which have been treated with potassium nitrate 

 in contrast to sodium nitrate as a source of nitrogen in order to de- 

 termine whether "arrow-head" scorch on the leaves was due to pot- 

 ash deficiency, A. F. Yeager found that the condition was worse on 

 potash-treated trees. Evidently the scorch is due to some other fac- 

 tor which required investigation. The report of the New Hampshire 

 Horticultural society gives the data under the title "Orchard Exper- 

 iments." 



A study of the records of bearing apple trees grown at the uni- 

 versity and in orchards over New Hampshire which were available, 

 indicates that tree girth is a fair index of the productiviy of a tree 

 during the following two years but may be worth very little as an 

 indicator of what it will do in either of these years alone. The av- 

 erage of two successive years' yield records is a good indicator of 

 the probable yield of the tree in future years. It is much better than 

 girth alone. This information is important in that it provides a basis 

 for the selection of trees to be used in experiments. The reliability 

 of experiments is often questioned because of the inherent variabil- 

 ity of the trees used. If we can thus eliminate as much of this vari- 

 ability as seems possible, then we may be more certain that the 

 results of any fertilizer test or other experiment are accurate. A 

 paper on this subject will appear in the 1939 report of the American 

 Society for Horticultural Science under the title "Tree Girth and 

 Yield as Indication of Subsequent Apple Tree Productivity" by A. F. 

 Yeager and L. P. Latimer. (Purnell Fund) 



