14 [ ASSEMBLY 
well an important practical determination for the guidance of farmers 
and gardeners in the planting of their seed, as it is often of import- 
ance with many species to get the seed into the ground as early as 
climatic conditions will admit, in order to achieve success. Thus, 
with the market gardener, a few days’ difference in the earliness of 
crop means much more gain in price than would be gained by even a 
large-increase of crop at a later period of the season. Seeds planted 
too early require much care and seem to offer little gain in earliness 
over seeds planted at just the right time. ) 
LYSIMETERS OR DRAIN GAUGES. 
The lysimeters are instruments for collecting and measuring the 
drainage from the soil. Box frames a little over twenty-five inches 
square and three feet deep, internal diameter, were made of oak plank 
strongly ironed at the corners. These boxes were lined with heavy 
copper fastened to the boxes at intervals by means of heavy copper 
tacks, and the projection of the copper at the top and bottom bent 
over the wood and securely tacked, the area measuring after the cop- 
per was in place 25.04 inches square, or one ten-thousandth of an 
acre. The copper was strongly soldered at the joinings, and the tack 
heads securely soldered into place after being slightly countersunk. 
May 29, these frames, three in number, were fitted with a temporary 
cutting edge of angle iron screwed to the lower surface, the cutting 
edge being parallel with the inside face of the box, and the bevel 
toward the outside and placed over the sod. By means of a heavy 
weight placed on top, aided by heavy mauls with which blows were 
struck upon each of two opposite corners consecutively, a ditch being 
dug along the outside as the box entered the soil, these frames were 
forced their whole depth into the soil. . A heavy flat section of boiler 
iron, the edge sharpened, was then forced underneath cutting the frame 
and contents free, the box and contents inverted, and a bottom of cop- 
per, dishing slightly to a common center, where a pipe was inserted 
and securely soldered, and to which a perforated guard was 
attached, was strongly fastened into position by bending the copper. 
sides over the edge of this bottom piece and securely soldering. 
These three boxes were then carried from the point of filling to the 
lysimeter lawn, where they were placed carefully in position, their sur- 
faces level with the surrounding ground and the pipe which passed 
from their bottom carried into a subterranean alcove built below them, 
and upon the arch of which the boxes rested, with the intervention 
of about six inches of soil. These alcoves branched from a pit care- 
fully arched and to which admittance is obtained by steps. A bottle 
kept under each lysimeter and to which the pipe leads enables us to 
collect all the water which drains through, and a graduated measure 
enables us to measure this water in thousandths of an inch, thus 
making a ready comparison with the rainfall, a record of which is kept 
by one of Green’s eight-inch rain gauges lovated alongside. 
Lysimeter No. 1 retains the sod upon its surface; No. 2 has its sur- 
face kept bare and undisturbed; No. 3 has its surface kept pulverized 
during the open season to the depth of an inch or two by frequent stir- 
ring with a trowel. 
