Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1917. 99 



pros and cons it has become generally accepted that the com- 

 mercial value of the plant food contained is the only definite 

 thing about a farm manure by which we can measure its ag- 

 ricultural and commercial value. 



The sheep manure, together with the straw bedding as 

 worked over by swine at Highmoor Farm carried .74 per cent 

 nitrogen, .29 per cent phosphoric acid and 1.04 per cent potash. 

 The mixed manure and bedding from three horses and two cows 

 also worked over by swine carried .46 per cent nitrogen, .19 

 per cent phosphoric acid and .50 per cent potash. At the com- 

 mercial values placed upon chemical fertilizers in 1914* the 

 plant food carried by a ton of the sheep and swine manure was 

 worth $4.16 and in a ton of the mixed manure $2.44. 



Assuming that two men and one double team can load, 

 draw to the (not too distant) field and spread eight tons of 

 farm manure a day it would cost about 75 cents a ton to apply 

 the manure to the land. Deducting the cost of application, 

 a ton of the sheep and swine manure had a value at the barn 

 of about $3.40 and of the mixed manure of $1.70, per ton. Each 

 of these lots weighed about 3500 pounds to the cord. Therefore 

 the sheep and swine manure was worth about 6 dollars a cord 

 and the mixed manure about 3 dollars a cord at the manure pit. 



FERTILIZER EXPERIMENTS ON APPLE TREES AT 

 HIGHMOOR FARM. 



As it is pretty generally known, when the State purchased 

 Highmoor Farm it had something over 3,500 apple trees upon 

 it. These trees were about twenty-five years old, but for the 

 most part had been completely neglected, as regards pruning, 

 fertilization, culture and spraying. The first season that the 

 Station had the farm the orchards were plowed, cultivated and 

 sprayed. Pruning was begun and has been continued until at 

 the present time the orchards are in pretty fair shape. It was, 

 of course, not desirable or practical to thin the trees out at the 

 start to where they should be at the end, but the pruning while 

 rather severe each year has been gradually decreased in amount. 



The orchards were annually fertilized at the rate of 1,000 

 pounds per acre of a commercial fertilizer carrying 4 per cent 



*It has seemed fairer to use in this discussion the prices prevailing be- 

 fore the war. 



