illllllUUUUM^J^I 
PHOTO E^gTCCO 
VOL. L. NO. 2163 
NEW YORK, JULY n, i89i 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS 
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TREES IN THE RURAL GROUNDS. 
T HE evergreen tree in the middle of Fig. 184. and 
immediately to the right of the little boy with a 
bicycle, is a Retinispora pisifera, called Sawara in 
its native land, the Island of Niphon in Japan. It seems 
to be little known in this country and is rarely alluded to 
in current literature. It was planted about 12 years ago— 
then about two feet high—and is now 13 feet high, with 
rather dense foliage of a rich dark green color. It has 
never been injured by heat or cold, and though growing in 
a hot, dry situation, is still vigorous and makes a yearly 
growth of a foot or more. It is noteworthy that the young 
foliage of this tree is so nearly the color of the older trees 
that one is puzzled to determine the one from the other. 
As evergreens never look so pretty as during their early 
spring growth this may be considered an objection to this 
conifer. It is called the Pea-fruited Retiniepora because 
the cones are very small, scarcely larger than peas. It is 
said not to grow so tall as R. obtusa, which has become so 
great a favorite in 
this country during 
the past few years. 
When the Rural 
Grounds were laid 
out, one of the most 
prominent posi¬ 
tions was given to a 
beautiful specimen 
of the Sweet Buck¬ 
eye, iEsculus flava. 
It grew into a 
round headed, per 
fectly symmetrical 
tree satisfactory in 
every way. During 
the blizzard of 
several years ago, 
many of the 
branches were 
broken, many were 
twisted out of shape 
as shown in the left 
hand top portion of 
the picture, and the 
tree appeared quite 
a wreck. On ac¬ 
count of its con¬ 
spicuous place, we 
grieved over Its dis¬ 
figurement, since to 
cut it down would 
be to expose a some¬ 
what abrupt curve 
in the carriage road 
and quite unbal¬ 
ance the harmony 
of the lawn, while 
to allow it to re¬ 
main would be j\ VIEW AT 
scarcely less objec¬ 
PLOT EXPERIMENTS. 
DR. T. H HOSKINS. 
It is hardly wise to fly from one extreme to the other in 
our judgments. Plot experiments at our colleges and 
stations have been “all the go,” for a dozen years and 
more; but now their very proposers rej-ct and decry them. 
As for myself, in my own experiments through many 
years, and in my study of the reports of experiments else¬ 
where, under what was called scientific control, I have 
recognized many errors, and mnch futile effort. Yet the 
bulletins have been soberly put forth, year after year, for 
the guidance of the men of the farm, with little indication 
that they were known to be erroneous and often mislead¬ 
ing in a high degree, by the men who made them—men 
claiming and receiving good pay for work which they now 
acknowledge to be destitute of scientific value, and un¬ 
worthy of credit. 
The real wonder is, that men of intelligence have been 
so long in finding out that hasty and superficial work 
VIEW AT THE RURAL GnOUiNDS. trom a Photograph. Pig. 184. 
tionable on account 
of its forlorn appearance. It was finally decided to cut off 
in the fall a pait of the injured portions, cut back the rest 
and, should the tree—or what remained of it—survive such 
drastic treatment, to still further prune it into shape as 
its growth from year to year permitted. This has been 
done and the tree is again assuming its shapely form. 
Just such a tree is needed in just that position. Had it 
been cut down after the blizzard It would have taken at 
least 10 years to have supplied its place. 
On the right of the Retinispora pisifera is a portion of 
the Yellow-wood which we may characterize as a perfect 
lawn tree with two failings. One is that the leaves of the 
inner part of the tree turn yellow and begin to drop be¬ 
fore even the summer months are past, and the second is, 
that the long petioles continue to drop and litter the lawn 
during most of the late fall and winter. The leaf stalks 
are like those of the Ailantus, enlarged at the base, some¬ 
thing like a horse-shoe, and growing slender towards the 
top. When they fall, the base, being heavier, strikes the 
ground first, and is somewhat supported by the blades of 
grass. Here they remain drawn down by worms or insects 
into the soil an inch or so, unless they are picked out 
one by one. 
The Cladrastis tinctoria grows wild upon rich hillsides 
from eastern Kentucky southward along the base of the 
Alleghanies and readily transplants if severely cut-back. 
cannot have value. It was not really scientific work, and 
if this was not sooner recognized by those engaged in it, 
what must we think of such long continued self-deception? 
It is true that all things must have a beginning, and that 
beginnings must be humble. In this case the outcome has 
certainly been humbling, but I think it can be made in¬ 
structive enough to prevent a total loss of past expendi 
tures. At least our experimenters have had a chance to 
learn how not to do it. 
In a recent report of the New York Station, at Geneva, 
I was forcibly struck with the childish folly of nearly all 
the crop experiments. Not the slightest care seems to have 
been taken to obtain equal conditions. The plots were re¬ 
reported as uoeven in surface, irregular in slope and un¬ 
equal in condition; and jet at the head of this station is a 
man of high scientific acquirements. Had he no control 
over his subordinates ? Certainly a trained chemist must 
have almost instinctively known that no possible value 
could attach to such “ experiments.” They were hardly 
on a par with the experiments of a bright boy in his first 
term of elementary physics. 
But do such fiascos, or the similar crude work of Dr. 
Sturtevant in his corn fields years ago, afford us any proof 
that no good can be looked for in plot experiments rightly 
prepared for, and rigidly pursued in the light of genuine 
science ? I fear that the common contempt of agriculture 
has had too much to do in leading all agricultural experi¬ 
menters a-tray. I find nowhere, away from Rothamsted, 
any true conception of the difficulty of such work. And 
where else but at Rothamsted has any plot work been 
done that is everywhere acknowledged to possess real, 
practical value ? 
When we consider the necessary preparatory expenditure 
in the practical pursuit of other branches of science—the 
cost and labor In getting ready for chemical, astronomical, 
geological, geographical, and every other kind of scientific 
work, in order to bar out, as far as possible, every source 
of error, how absolutely silly is it to set a young man at 
trying crop and fertilizing experiments upon ordinary 
rough farm land, with no preliminary preparation. It is 
almost as ridiculous as it is now, because of these pre¬ 
destined fiascos, to repudiate crop, soil and fertilizer 
experiments altogether. 
The first thing our stations must do, to make their 
plot work useful, Is to fit land for it as carefully as observ¬ 
atories and labora¬ 
tories are fitted for 
their use. An ex¬ 
perimental plot, to 
begin with, if reli¬ 
able results are 
asked for, should be 
perfectly level. 
Water flowing over 
experimental plots 
utterly nullifies 
every care that can 
be taken ; for water 
transports both soil 
and fertility. Such 
plots, then, first re¬ 
quire to be “toned 
up.” Then they 
should be under¬ 
drained. Even on 
light and level land 
there can be no uni¬ 
formity without 
this, no matter 
what the nature of 
the soil is. When 
we have got thus 
far, we are ready to 
grapple with the 
fact that there are 
probably no two 
square feet of 
arable soil on the 
globe tnat are ex¬ 
actly alike, and be¬ 
fore we are ready 
to do good work 
this difficulty must 
be met. By care 
)h. pig. 184. and patience it can 
be sufficiently well 
done; but, I think f 
only for one kind of plant at a time. That is, we may 
equalize the soil conditions for corn, for instance, but then 
they may not be as well equalized for another crop. 
After securing all this, we begin to come to the ques¬ 
tions of uniformity in tillage, in fertilizing, in seed, in 
culture, in harvesting, storage and care—previous to turn¬ 
ing our samples over to the chemical department. 
Here is a tremendous work to be done, and an enormous 
expense to be incurred I It certainly cannot be done for 
nothing, or maintained for nothiDg; nevertheless it either 
has to be done, or we are tied up forever to mere pot ex¬ 
periments, the necessary conditions of which are such as 
absolutely to require their results to be checked by experi¬ 
ments under more normal conditions in the field. I con¬ 
cede that for a farmer’s own experiments,—such as a plain 
farmer can try with advantage,—no such exactness is 
needed, since he has only to try his own land in a rough 
way for his own immediate ends. I have this season sown 
across fields of wheat, barley, oats and rye, a belt of fertil¬ 
izing material in this way: First, two rods wide of nitrate 
of soda. Second, and lapping upon the nitrate 10 feet, 
two rods wide sown with muriate of potash. Here I am 
simply asking my land and my crops to tell me what I can 
do for them next year, to enable them to do better by me. 
No such special preparation as is outlined above is needed 
in cases like this. Rough work can yet win a correct re- 
