Bulletin No. 6, Alabama Experiment Station. 

 The horticultural portions of this bulletin are con- 

 cerned with tests of various varieties of vegetables and 



experiments with grapes. The meagre 

 Vegetables in discussions of characteristics of \ arieties 

 Alabama. of vegetables are presented in tables, 



without summaries, and little can be got 

 from them. Tests were made with varieties of potatoes, 

 peas, radishes, tomatoes, cabbages and muskmelons. 

 Fertilizer tests were made upon potatoes, and several 

 varieties were compared as to keeping qualities. 



Several sorts of cabbages were sown October ii, and 

 allowed to remain during the winter. 

 Winter-grown "One row of each variety was pro- 

 Cabbage Plants, tected by inclining a foot plank on the 

 north side, the rows running east and 

 west. There was a marked difference in those protected 

 in this manner ; the plants being about three times larger 

 than the unprotected in all the varieties except the Large 

 Late Drumhead and the Bloomsdale Large Late Flat 

 Dutch, which were about five times as large as those not 

 protected. Only about twenty per cent, of the Drum- 

 head Savoy, Landreth's Early Summer and Green Curled 

 Savoy, unprotected, survived the winter. For the fir'st 

 month, the protected continued to grow and remained 

 larger than the unprotected ; but after that the unpro- 

 tected ones grew rapidly, until finally no difference could 

 be seen. Protecting them did not cause them to head 

 any earlier. Bloomsdale, Large Late Flat Dutch and 

 Large Late Drumhead produced fine heads, and nearly 

 all of them headed." 



The vineyard, to which reference has been made in 

 former abstracts, continues to do well. ' ' From this year's 

 experiment we draw the following conclu- 

 sions, so far as they can be drawn from re- Grapes in 

 suits of one year; i. That the grape grows Alabama, 

 and fruits well on 'red prairie land.' 2. 

 That the varieties of black grapes rot less than the white. 

 3. That sacking the white grapes (except Niagara) and 

 Delaware (red) does not pay. 4. That the Concord, Ives, 

 Norton's 'Va., Niagara and Hartford will pay for plant- 

 ing in the prairie -for table use, and are benefited by 

 being sacked. " 



□ How Crops Grow. .4 Treatise on llic Chciiiiial Com- 

 position, Slrm-tui-c and I.ifo of the Plant, for Students of 



Agrieulture, loith iViiiiieroiis Illustrations 

 How Grapes and Tables of Analyses. Second Edition. 

 Grow. By Samuel IV. Johnson, J/. ./. Pp. 41b. 



Orange Judd Co., .V. ]'. Twenty years 

 have passed since Professor Johnson first gave students 



of agriculture his inimitable and invaluable works, "How 

 Crops Grow" and "How Crops Feed." These works 

 have been more helpful to the study of agriculture in its 

 chemical aspects than all other American works com- 

 bined. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we take 

 up a new edition of the older work, for progress has been 

 rapid during the intervening years. This new book is, 

 in the best sense, a revision. It is not an extension. It 

 adheres strictly to the original plan, and therefore pos- 

 sesses all the merits of conciseness and perspicuity which 

 characterize the first edition. The new volume is larger 

 than the old by only about twenty pages, yet there is 

 more than this amount of new matter, as some seventeen 

 pages have been saved by reducing the tabular matter 

 in the appendix and the prefatory matter has been 

 shortened. 



The most conspicuous additions and extensions in this 

 edition are the discussions upon carbohydrates, albumi. 

 noids, alkaloids, amides, the functions in the plant of 

 potassium, magnesium and calcium, and seed variation 

 and selection. In the original volume, the discussion of 

 ferments was confined to the action of diastose in germ- 

 ination, but in the later one it is considered in a larger 

 sense in connection with the albuminoids. In short, the 

 volume presents an epitome of the present knowledge of 

 how crops grow, without presenting a burden of details. 



Bulletin No. 8, Massachusetts Hatch Experiment 

 Station. Experiments in Greenhouse Heating. Some 

 Observations on Peach Yellows. S. T. Maynard. Profes- 

 sor Maynard is the first experiment station 

 officer to make careful tests of the relative Steam «s. 

 efficiency of steam and hot water in heating Hot Water, 

 greenhouses. His tests of last winter in- 

 dicate that hot water is more economical and gives more 

 uniform results with the heaters which he used. The 

 tests have been repeated during the last winter with sim- 

 ilar results. During a certain period, 6,598 lbs. of coal 

 were used for the hot water heater and the average daily 

 temperature was 49.74°. During the same time, the 

 steam plant, heating a similar area, used 9,784 lbs. of 

 coal and maintained a temperature of 48,39°, It will 

 probably be found eventually that a combined steam 

 and hot water plant will be most satisfactory for many 

 kinds of houses These experiments certainly show a 

 superiority in hot water heating. 



"Some Observations on Peach Yellows" are also pre- 

 sented in this bulletin. These observations possess un- 

 usual interest from the fact that so early as 1875 Profes- 

 sor Goessmann began experiments at the Massachusetts 

 college upon yellows, and Professor Penhallow soon after 



