28 Bulletin 57. 
pounds or a net loss of 2.8 pounds which is equal to 47 per 
cent. 
The same thing was tried in another field of much 
heavier corn. The 165 hills surrounded by four full hills 
averaged 10.11 pounds each or fully twenty-five tons of 
fodder corn per acre. The 248 hills that were next to a 
missing hill averaged 10.77 pounds; a gain of 0.66 pounds 
for each of the four surrounding hills, making again of 2.64 
pounds. The loss for each missing hill is lo.ii pounds and 
the gain 2.64 pounds, at a net loss of 7.47 pounds or 74 per 
cent. 
Another field of rather light corn gaVe somewhat 
different results. The 216 hills near a missing hill weighed 
4.27 pounds and the 392 hills fully surrounded weighed 3.52 
pounds each. Here is a gain of four times 0.75 pounds or 
3.00 pounds as compared with a loss of 3.52 pounds ora net 
loss of but 0.52 pounds equal to 15 per cent. 
The three fields show most widely different results and 
it is evident that these differences are due to the different 
vigor in the growth of the crop. When a crop is of such a 
large rank growing variety as in the second case, and there 
are stalks enough in the hill to produce the maximum 
growth, the ground is so full of roots, that even the loss of 
a hill does not open up enough extra ground to add much 
to the weight of the surrounding hills compared with the 
large growth there already. While in a field with a small 
crop the result is relatively larger. In absolute weight of 
effect, a missing hill has closely the same result in all three 
fields.. In the field with the light crop it makes a gain of 
0.75 pounds for each of the four hills surrounding it; in the 
held of medium growth the gain is 0.89 pounds per hill and 
in the field with the very heavy growth 0.66 pounds per hill. 
The average of these is 0.74 pounds for each hill or about 
3.00 pounds for the four surrounding hills. It can be said 
then that in general a missing hills makes a gain of about 
three pounds of cornfoclder in the weight of the surrounding 
hills and a loss of the weight of an average hill of the field. 
