NEw YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 163 
VOEUNTEER EXPERIMENTS. 
in 1904 the Station began collecting and recording the results 
of experiments made by farmers in all parts of the State. As 
these experiments were carried out entirely by the farmers them- 
selves we call them volunteer experiments. Forty-one such experi- 
ments made in 1904 were reported in Bulletin 264. 
It was hoped that in 1905 a much larger number of volunteer 
experiments might be secured for publication in the present bul- 
letin. In the spring many farmers were urged to make volunteer 
experiments and.in the fall they were requested to report results. 
Although considerable effort was expended in this line only 50 
reports were obtained. Evidently, our farmers are not experiment- 
ing as much as they should. We have had occasion to mention 
this before. 
The highly favorable results obtained in the numerous experi- 
ments made by the Station and by New York farmers during the 
past four years should stimulate potato growers to give spraying 
a trial. If it really is as profitable as these experiments indicate 
they can not afford to neglect spraying. As a matter of fact many 
are beginning to practice spraying, but only a few are making any 
attempt to determine how much the yield is increased thereby or 
whether the spraying is profitable. Let us have more experiments 
in 1906. It is a very easy matter to make potato spraying experi- 
ments like the farmers’ business experiments reported in this bul-— 
letin. The two important points to be determined are: (1) The 
increase in yield due to spraying; and (2) the expense of spraying. 
To make a detailed report of each of the volunteer experiments 
as was done in Bulletin 264 necessitates frequent repetition of cer- 
tain statements and requires an unnecessarily large amount of space 
in the bulletin. It is believed that these reports may be greatly 
condensed without materially reducing their value. The leading 
features of the 50 volunteer experiments are shown in the follow- 
ing table: 
