134 HATCH EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



individual plants tends to favor a coarser structure. Rows 

 three feet and four inches apart Avitli plants twenty inches 

 from each other in the rov>^ (Westfield), and rows two feet 

 and eight inches apart with plants two feet from each other 

 in the row (Hatfield) gave better returns than rows three 

 feet apart with plants eighteen inches from each other in the 

 row (Agawam). 



2. A timely, shallow use of the cultivator or hoe for the 

 removal of weeds favors a uniform progress of growth. A 

 careless use of cultivator or hoe invariably checks more or 

 less the growth of the plants, and modifies more or less their 

 structure and general character. 



3. The diflerent fertilizer mixtures used in our experi- 

 ments have afl'ected in a less marked degree the weight of the 

 crop raised by their aid than the quality. New lands reduced 

 by previous cropping to a, state approaching general exhaus- 

 tion of available plant food, if otherwise well fitted for raising 

 tobacco, have given excellent results when supplied with a 

 suitable mixture of fertilizing ingredients in quantities sim- 

 ilar to those applied during our experiments (Westfield). 

 Such lands are at times preferable to old tobacco lands over- 

 charged with remnants of all kinds of saline ingredients, 

 usually associated with the common run of commercial fer- 

 tilizers. 



4. Cotton-seed meal, linseed meal and castor pomace have 

 proved equally good sources of nitrogen for the successful 

 raising of tobacco when used in connection with nitrate of 

 soda or potash, sufiicient to furnish one-fourth of the nitrogen 

 called for bj' the crop. 



5. Nitrate of soda as a part of the nitrogen supply in 

 the fertilizer (25 per cent.), when used in presence of acid 

 phosphate, dissolved bone-black, etc., has been accompanied 

 with better results regarding quality of crop than nitrate of 

 potash under otherwise similar conditions. 



6. Cotton-seed hull ashes and high-grade sulphate of 

 potash have proved in our observation most valuable sources 

 of potash for tobacco, the fin-mer in the majority of cases 

 loading. Nitrate of potash has produced excellent results 

 when used in connection with an alkaline phosphate, as phos- 

 phatic slag meal or with carbonate of potash-magnesia. Our 



