New Yoke Ageicultubal Expeeiment Station. 35 
kinds of injurious animals and insects. The dimensions of field 
experiment are too large to allow of exact treatment. When, however, 
the experiments are conducted on a condensed scale it is easy to control 
all the factors which influence the development of plants." 
Hoeing. 
Although we consider the system of plat experimentation as totally 
unreliable for the purposes of generalization upon manurial questions, 
as never showing absolute relationships between fertility of land and 
crops, yet for the purposes of interpretation in terms of greater or less, 
it may sometimes be found useful as offering in its results, suggestions 
or verifications of ideas or conclusions elsewhere elaborated. For a 
useful purpose, however, even in these respects, each trial must be 
carefully investigated and results rejected which manifestly are 
dependent upon other causes than those which were intended to have 
applied. The following trial of the effect of intercultural tillage seems 
to show that the process is useful, but the rationale, which is probably 
a physiological question of root pruning and a physical question of 
retarding evaporation, finds no explanation in our trial, nor have we 
any note of the efficacy of the process in the given case, except the 
general result of increase of crop, and the special result of increase in 
one series and decrease in the other. It is evident that were our trials 
confined either to B upper or B lower, alone, the conclusions derived 
would have been radically different. 
The trials in the B series were with Waushakum corn, the hills 44 
inches apart, no fertilizer being used. B 2 was not hoed, but the 
weeds removed by hand. B 3 was hoed May 30, June 12 and July 9; 
B 4 was hoed May 26, June 4, 12, 18, 24, and July 2 and 11. The 
crops were stooked September 7, and harvested September 30. 
PLAT. 
No. of 
plants. 
MERCHANTABLE. 
UNMERCHANT- 
ABLE. 
No. of 
ears. 
Weight, 
lbs. 
No. of 
ears. 
Weight, 
lbs. 
B 2. Upper 
638 
605 
625 
404 
203.2 
85.4 
79 
170 
6.8 
16.1 
Lower 
Total 
1,243 
641 
602 
1,029 
636 
510 
288.6 
208.1 
136.3 
249 
75 
156 
22.9 
5.9 
12.5 
Total 
1,243 
626 
632 
1,146 
564 
665 
344.4 
175.5 
231.5 
231 
135 
92 
18.4 
11.5 
9.2 
Total 
1,258 
1,229 
407.0 
227 
20.7 
