37 



which they require from the soil can thrive on soils to which for a long 

 series of years neither manure nor fei'tilizer furnishing nitrogen has 

 been applied. That the grasses can do this, however, has been shown 

 both at Amherst and by the work of numerous experimenters in other 

 parts of the United States and in Europe, 



The limed portion of one plot upon the Experiment Station gi'ounds 

 last season, which had been annually manured with dissolved bone-black 

 and mui'iate of potash for fifteen years, and the greater part of the time 

 at the rates respectively, bone-black 320 pounds and muriate of potash 

 160 pounds per acre, gave the following yields: hay, first cut, at the 

 rate of 3,600 pounds i)er acre ; rowen, second cut, at the rate of 2,575 

 pounds per acre. 



Here was a total crop — and on soil, by the way, which is not typical 

 grass land — at the rate of rather more than 3 tons per acre, at an 

 annual fertilizer cost, covering the bone-black and muriate of potash, of 

 about f 5.50 jjer acre. The land, however, has been limed twice during 

 the fifteen years, at a cost for each liming of about f 6 or f 7 per acre. 

 AVe have, then, an annual cost for lime at the rate of about $1 per acre, 

 making the total annual cost of the fertilizers used about $6.50. For 

 this small expenditure we have a crop in the fifteenth year of rather 

 over 3 tons. In the same field we have a similar plot, to which the same 

 quantities of dissolved bone-black, muriate of potasli and lime are 

 annually applied, and in addition nitrate of soda at the rate of 160 

 pounds per acre. Here the two crops last year amounted to 7,600 pounds 

 of well-made hay. We have thus an increase of some 1,500 pounds of 

 hay as the result of the employment of 160 pounds of nitrate of soda, 

 which would cost about $4. The use of the nitrate in addition to the 

 bone-black and potash, therefore, is clearly profitable. It will be asked, 

 however. Whence comes the nitrogen required by the grasses, where 

 the dissolved bone-black, n)uriate of potash and lime annually are used? 

 The answer undoubtedly is, From decaying clover roots and stubble. 

 Clover thrives under this system of manuring. It draws nitrogen freely 

 from the air. The clovers, however, are not long-lived plants. On 

 their death and decay the nitrogen which had become a part of their 

 tissues becomes available to the grasses which follow. By liberal use 

 of phosphates, potash and lime, tiien, we can, if we will, in the first 

 jilace produce heavy crops of clover and later heavy mixed crops of 

 grass and clover, the grass feeding upon the products of the decay of 

 the earliest clover plants. That this will prove the most profitable sys- 

 tem of manuring does not follow, for, as indicated by the comparison 

 above made, yet greater profit was consequent in the experiment under 

 consideration from a combination of nitrate of soda with the other 

 materials. 



The Necessity for Lime. — The fact that an application of lime is 

 frequently necessai'y in oi'der to bring soil into such condition that 

 clovers will thrive was particularly emphasized in the first article upon 

 the hay crop. The results in the field which has been referred to very 

 strikingly illustrate .the same point. In this field there are two plots, 

 which for the last fifteen years have annually received equal (|uantities 

 of dissolved bone-black and muriate of potash. One in addition has 

 received during the fifteen years two applications of lime at the rate of 

 1 ton per acre, — the first application, deeply disc-harrowed in, in 1899 ; 

 the second application, put on as a top-dressing to the grass land, in 

 the early spring of 190-1. The product of the two plots was at the 

 following rates per acre : — 



Unlimed plot: — 



rounds. 



First cut 860 



Second cat, 280 



