436 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



In 1873 several plats containing three rows of Concord 

 vines, six in each row, were set apart in a suitable locality 

 for the application of the special fertilizer. Directly adjoin- 

 ing were planted at a similar distance from the Concord 

 vines, corresponding every way with the arrangement of the 

 former, in each plat twelve wild-growing specimens of the 

 Vitis Labrusca (wild blue grape), taking care at that time 

 that a part of the wild grape-vine remained in its original 

 place to secure the identity of variety, etc. 



The original plant was left to its natural resources, and 

 the transplanted part treated, in common with the Concord 

 vines, with the following fertilizers per acre: — four hun- 

 dred and fifty pounds of dissolved bone-black, containing 

 twelve per cent, of soluble phosphoric acid, and one hundred 

 and eighty pounds of nitrate of potash, containing forty-five 

 per cent, of potassium oxide and thirteen per cent, of nitro- 

 gen ; or fifty-two pounds of soluble phosphoric acid, eighty- 

 one pounds of potassium oxide, and twenty-three pounds of 

 nitrogen. One half of the fertilizer was applied in the fall, 

 the other half early in the spring. 



The examination of the grapes from fertilized and unfer- 

 tilized localities began three years after the first treatment 

 of the various plats, and only the fruits of a corresponding 

 state of ripeness served for the tests. The berries, freed 

 from the stems, furnished the ash constituents. The juice 

 of the entire grape was tested for grape-sugar only. 



The result of all ash analyses contained in these pages, 

 including grape, strawberry, and peach, are reported here 

 only with reference to five prominent constituents : Potassa, 

 lime, magnesia, iron, and phosphoric acid. Other con- 

 stituents of the ashes, as soda, silica, etc., although quanti- 

 tatively determined, are for the present excluded from the 

 discussion. The various subsequent analytical statements 

 do, therefore, not represent the composition of the entire 

 ash, but refer to the relative proportions in one-hundred- 

 weight parts of the specified constituents. This course has 

 been adopted to render the changes which occur in that 

 direction more prominent. 



