Teh., 19261 



PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS 



31 



With medium early varieties like Bonnj^ Best it takes new growth about 

 two weeks to produce blossom clusters, and the fruit on these clusters 

 from five to six weeks to mature. 



T.\BLE XVII — Relation of yield to growth and cluster production in early and late 



tomato varieties 



While there is a correlation between growth, flower clusters produced and 

 yield of fruit, it is not so close as one would obtain using plants of a single 

 variety onl}-. In order to bring out this relation more closely the inches 

 of growth necessary to produce one blossom cluster and the pounds of 

 fruit ripened from each blossom cluster are given in Table XVIII. 



Table XVIII — Growth and yield per plant in early and late tomatoes on the basis of each 



cluster of flower buds 



It seems that the time of ripening for the earl}^ types is shorter than 

 for the late types, since the fruit per cluster ripened on September 11 is 

 7.8 ounces for the early type, 4.3 ounces for the medium, and 3.0 for the 

 late. The average fruit produced per cluster on the dwarf plants is high 

 because of the small number of clusters. On September 18 the average 

 jdeld per cluster on the medium varieties had practically caught up to 

 that of the early varieties, the lower yield on that date being due to a 

 smaller number of clusters on July 29. In this climate the early and 

 medium early varieties are generally most profitable because a large 

 proportion of the fruit on late varieties does not ripen. This is shown in 

 Table XIX. 



Effect of Fertilizer on Strawberries (Hatch Fimd) 



In previous experiments carried on at this Station nitrate of soda 

 applied to strawberries either during the non-fruiting or the fruiting year 

 has failed to increase the yield and in some cases has decreased it. With 

 nitrate of soda larger leaf area has been obtained, and there has been a 



