96 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
the memory and be lost, if no book is at 
hand in which to put them down. One hav¬ 
ing a large farm, with its many cares, cannot 
afford to risk its management entirely to the 
memory. The memorandum book is liisbest 
friend, and when rightly employed is a most 
profitable servant. The storekeeper, and 
other business men cannot get along success¬ 
fully without a blank book, and neither 
should the farmer try to carry all his pur¬ 
poses and plans in his head. A small book 
in the pocket, and a pencil, well used, will 
save many times their trifling cost in a single 
entry ; and the habit of making notes is of 
itself a valuable acquisition to every one. 
Pigeon Boxes and Boosts. 
It matters not whether a few pigeons are 
to be kept for pleasure, or a large number as 
a source of food, they should be provided 
with proper roosts and nest boxes. A simple 
pole is not the best rest for pigeons to alight 
upon, especially if they are in considerable 
numbers. A series of perches, as shown in 
figure 1, consisting of a slanting board nailed 
upon the side of the building, and bearing 
short out-standing pieces, is excellent, both 
as to neat appearance and comfort to the 
birds. There is a place for a single pigeon 
on each perch, and therefore no crowding 
and discomfort, as with the ordinary pole 
perch. • The slanting board keeps all the 
droppings from the side of the building, and 
preserves a neat appearance. A series of 
nest boxes is given in figure 2, the back being 
removed to show the interior arrangement. 
Pigeons pair and breed so rapidly that abund¬ 
ant room must be given them in the nesting 
boxes. The hen bird often lays and begins 
to sit for the second time before the young 
ones of the first brood are able to take care 
of themselves, hence it is important to have 
two apartments in each box, the cock taking 
charge of the young pigeons in one while the 
hen sits in the other. There is a lid for the top 
of the boxes, which can be raised as desired. 
The whole structure and arrangement can be 
easily understood from the engraving. Such 
nest boxes can be placed upon a beam in the 
Fig. 2.— NEST BOXES FOR PIGEONS. 
bam, or some other convenient place in an 
outbuilding, with the holes opening through 
the side of the building, unless it be under a 
shed that is always open. A pigeon house 
may be put upon the outside of a building, 
and be one or more stories in hight. The one 
shown in figure 3 has two rows of nests. In 
this way the same roof answers for both rows, 
and lumber is economized. Pigeon houses 
erected upon poles are not readily accessible, 
besides, they are not substantial, and during 
a high wind are frequently blown down. It 
is much safer and better to put them either 
upon or within some building. Pigeons, if 
properly managed, may be made to supply, as 
squabs, a much esteemed delicacy at very little 
cost. The chief objection to keeping them is 
the mischief they may do in the garden. 
Many a gardener knows to his cost how fond 
pigeons are of very green peas, taking them 
as soon as they break through the ground. A 
friend, who has both .a large garden and a 
large flock of pigeons, informs us that he has 
no difficulty with the pigeons; he always 
keeps food near their nests, where they can 
Fig. 3. —OUTSIDE NEST BOXES. * 
find it without the trouble of wandering for 
it, and this effectually prevents all trespass¬ 
ing upon the crops in the gardens or fields. 
Science Applied to Farming — LXVII. 
The readers of the American Agriculturist 
are already familiar with the field experi¬ 
ments with fertilizers that have been reported 
in its columns during the past three years. 
With the help of assistants I have been work¬ 
ing over the reports of the experiments of 
1880. The results increase in interest from 
year to year, and those of last season—the 
fourth—are the most valuable of all. To give 
them in full would require a good sized vol¬ 
ume. I shall give in this and succeeding 
articles the main results in a condensed form, 
referring those who care for fuller details, 
to the forthcoming Report of the Conn. State 
Board of Agriculture, for 1880. As will be 
remembered, there were 
Two Classes of Experiments, 
which I may call General and Special. The 
former being made with a set of eight, and 
the latter with a set of sixteen or eighteen 
kinds and mixtures of fertilizers. Along 
with the regular sets the experimenters used 
other materials, as lime, ashes, and farm 
manures at discretion. The general experi¬ 
ments were proposed as means of testing 
the needs of the soil for producing the crops. 
Seven of the fertilizers were the same as Nos. 
1 to 7, in the table herewith (except that they 
had nitrate of soda in the place of “ nitrogen 
mixture,” and 200 lbs. of muriate of potash 
instead of 150 lbs., the eighth being plaster). 
The amounts were such as to supply plots of 
one-tenth, or one-twentieth acre, with the 
proportions per acre stated in the table. The 
Special experiments, as the table shows, had 
for their object the study of the relation of 
L- — 
the plants as grown in the field, to the nitro¬ 
gen supply. The General experiments have 
also contributed very materially to the same 
end. Among the many important problems 
agricultural chemistry has still to 6olve is : 
The Feeding Capacities of Plants | 
the power to gather their supplies of food 
from soil and air, and the effects of different 
fertilizing materials upon their growth. A 
vast deal of experience in the laboratory and 
in the field bears concurrent testimony to the 
fact, though we are still deplorably in the 
dark as to how or why it is so, that different 
kinds of plants have different capacities for 
making use of the stores of food that soil 
and ah' contain. Of the ingredients of p it 
food commonly lacking in our soils, the most 
important, because the most rare and costly, 
is nitrogen. Leguminous crops, like clover, 
do somehow or other, gather a good supply 
of nitrogen where cereals, such as wheat, 
barley, etc., would half starve for lack of it, 
and this in the face of the fact that legumin¬ 
ous plants contain a great deal of nitrogen, 
and cereals relatively little. Hence a heavy 
nitrogenous manuring may be profitable for 
wheat and be in large part lost on clover. 
Some experiments to gain more light upon 
this question, especially as applied to com 
and potato plants, wfere described in the 
American Agriculturist for April 1879 and 
May 1880. Similar trials were made last 
season. The results of the three seasons’ 
work are given in the table, in which the 
plan of the experiments is also mapped out. 
The idea was to compare the effects of 
mineral fertilizers (superphosphate and pot¬ 
ash salt), alone, and the same with nitrogen 
in different amounts and forms. The nitro¬ 
gen was supplied as nitric acid in nitrate of 
soda, as ammonia in sulphate of ammonia, 
as organic nitrogen in dried blood, and in 
several forms combined in the “nitrogen 
mixture ” and in Peruvian guano. In view 
of the danger of results being vitiated by ir¬ 
regularities in soil or otherwise, the tests of 
the effect of nitrogen in varying amounts and 
forms were duplicated in groups III, IY and 
V, and the “mixed minerals” in 6, 6a, 6b, 
and 16. Suggesting a careful study of the 
table for details, I give a brief summary of the 
Effects of Nitrogenous Fertilizers ui>on Corn. 
Estimating a bushel of corn, with its cobs 
and stalks, to contain iy 2 lb. of nitrogen, 
and to be worth 80 cents, the effects of the 
nitrogenous fertilizers in the Special and in 
the General experiments may be summarized 
as follows, remembering that the superphos¬ 
phate and potash salt, “mixed minerals,” 
supplied the amounts of phosphoric acid and 
potash in a crop of not far from 55 or 60 
bushels, which would also contain about the 
72 lbs. of nitrogen : 
Average Results of Experiments with Corn in 
187S, 1879, 1880. 
BUSHELS OP CORN AND POUNDS OP NITROGEN IN CROP 
11 Special Experiments. 
“Mixed minerals” alone .. 
Same -j- 24 lbs. nitrogen_ 
Same + 4S lbs. nitrogen_ 
Same -j- 72 lbs. nitrogen_ 
75 General Experiments. 
“Mixed minerals ” alone... 
Same + 24 lbs. nitrogen 
Corn, 
Nitrogen, 
bushels. 
pounds. 
.. 45.2 
60.4 
.. 54.5 
72.7 
.. 55.4 
73.8 
.. 56.7 
75.6 
.. 43.4 
57.8 
.. 47.8 
63.7 
In the General experiments the mixture of 
300 lbs. superphosphate and 200 lbs. muriate 
of potash brought on the average of fifty- 
three experiments, about 43y 2 bushels of 
shelled com per acre. The Special experi- 
