106 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



2 . The Florida soft phosphate is apparently a very inferior 

 material, the phosphoric acid evidently becoming available 

 only with great slowness. 



3. Steamed bone meal appears to be inferior in availability 

 to raw bone meal. 



Soil Tests. 



During the past season two soil tests have been carried 

 out upon our own grounds, both in continuation of previous 

 work upon the same grounds. The same kinds of fertilizers 

 have been applied to each plot and in the same amounts as 

 last year. The fertilizers in these experiments are used in 

 accordance with the co-operative plan for soil tests adopted 

 in Washington in 1899. Each fertilizer wherever employed 

 is always applied at the following rates per acre : — 



Nitrate of soda, . . 160 pounds, furnishing nitrogen. 

 Dissolved bone-black, . 320 jjounds, furnishing phosphoric acid. 

 Muriate of jiotash, . 160 pounds, furnishing potash. 

 Land plaster, . . 400 pounds. 

 Lime, .... 400 pounds. 

 Manure, ... 5 cords. 



8oil Test ivith Grass (^South Acre). 

 The past is the twelfth season that the experiment on this 

 field has been in progress. The field has been cropped in 

 successive years as follows : corn, corn, oats, grass and clover, 

 grass and clover, corn followed by mustard as a catch-crop, 

 rye, soy beans, white mustard, corn, corn, and this year grass 

 and clover seeded in early spring. During all this time four 

 of the fourteen plots into which the field is divided have 

 received neither manure nor fertilizer. Three plots have 

 yearly received a single important manurial element, nitro- 

 gen, phosphoric acid or potash, every year the same ; three 

 have received each year two of these elements ; one has re- 

 ceived all three yearly ; and one each has received, yearly, 

 lime, plaster or manure. The larger part of the field accord- 

 ingly has remained either entirely unmanured or has had but 

 a partial manuring, and the degree of exhaustion of most of 

 the plots is considerable. The four nothing plots this year 

 produced an average at the rate of 930 pounds of hay per 

 acre. The following table shows the rate of yield of the 

 several plots : — 



