1907.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 57 



economy to give the manure the double handling involved in 

 the spring application. If the storage for manure is suffi- 

 cient, so that it can be safely held where made until spring, 

 application at that season will undoubtedly be safest on most 

 of our N^ew England farms, where the surfaces of the fields 

 are usually far from level. With level fields, on the other 

 hand, application of manure during the winter would seem 

 to be the better farm practice. 



X. — !NiTEATE OF Soda for Rowen. 

 The station has been experimenting for a number of years, 

 with a view to noting whether nitrate of soda applied soon 

 after the first crop is cut will give a ]3rofitable increase in 

 the rowen crop. The field in which most of our experiments 

 have been tried was seeded to pure timothy in the fall of 

 1897. The crop is now considerably mixed with clover 

 (mostly white), which has been gradually coming in. For 

 the first crop we apply fertilizers at the following rates per 

 acre: nitrate of soda, 150 pounds; muriate of potash, 200 

 pounds; fine-ground bone, 400 pounds. The total area of 

 the field is a little more than three acres. The rate of yield 

 of the first crop this year was 3,153 pounds per acre, which 

 is considerably less than the average jDroduct since the field 

 was seeded. For the purpose of the experiment with nitrate 

 of soda, eight equal plots have been laid off, each containing 

 almost exactly one-third of an acre. During the j)ast six 

 years alternate plots in this series of eight have annually 

 received a top-dressing of nitrate of soda. For the past three 

 years, in order that this may be more uniformly spread, we 

 have mixed the nitrate of soda for each plot with such a 

 quantity of basic slag meal as to constitute an application 

 of the latter at the rate of 400 pounds per acre. To equalize 

 conditions on the alternate plots to which no nitrate is ap- 

 plied, the slag meal is applied to all of these at the same 

 rate. The application of fertilizers to the several plots 

 and the rates of yield per acre are shown in the following 

 table : — 



