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138 _ [ASSEMBLY 
— 
twentieth of an acre was no sound corn, and but nine pounds and a 
half ounce of soft corn. An adjoining row of corn, planted in the 
interval between this plat and the next, had weeds encroaching upon 
one side, while the other side of the row was kept hoed. This row seemed 
to differ but little in appearance from rows in the clean plats along- 
side, and the damage caused by so much of its root area being occu- 
pied by weeds seemed trifling. The same observation was made with 
the sorghum plant. If weeds did all their damage through the robbing’ 
of the soil, then but a small quantity of fertilizer would be required 
to maintain the soil in its condition as against the loss by the weeds ; 
as, however, the application of fertilizer does not produce this effect, 
we must presume that the damage from weeds is from some other 
cause. When the coolness of the shaded soil, as compared with the 
exposed soil, is considered, we may well have it suggested to us that 
weeds damage much the corn crop through the keeping of the soil 
temperature below that proper for the best development of the plant.” 
Of one thing, however, we may feel sure. ‘The abandonment of a 
crop to weeds is not only ruinous to the yield, but is as well wasteful 
of labor which thus becomes fruitless. 
STOLEN CROPS. 
We had three plats designed for the study of the influence upon the — 
main crop of growing beans and pumpkins, but the nearly complete 

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. 
, 
failure of the bean and pumpkin seed to form plants vitiated the ex- - 
periment, and hence the three plats may be considered as duplicates. 
Plat D. eight, planted with Waushakum corn and beans, yielded but 
four pounds eight ounces of beans, and D. ten, corn and pumpkins, 
yielded but twenty-eight pounds of pumpkin. The yield of corn was : a 
ae 
Sound corn. Soft corn. 
POE e tee site els a ee agials ales ‘188 lbs. 8 ozs. 47 lbs. 134 ozs. 
MD Bras) tpi h. tene hits Li soca'e iets eave 161>-$6 14. 94° SDB ae 
BRORLrcier alee hath oh dea etole'taro/eim are ole 119 $60) Lh! COU aon 
The figures calculated to the acre read for the sound corn: ~ 
i Pc} RE Ca Sey alee test is RS i 47.1 bush. 
MID BN.) oh Ste 014. 3c bale’ ete elena Vals wtp": sate Ce a ammneee 40.4 < 
PORNO Pc iets Se ORR acs Fle oti aie see ae 29 28 ese 
While we can hardly suppose that the few pumpkin vines that grew 
were productive of great injury, yet we find a great falling off of crop — 
a 
~ upon the pumpkin plat, and a greater variation than occurs between ~ 
other duplicates. We cannot believe that the presence of the beans 
added to the corn crop, but must rather believe the difference between 
D. eight and D. nine falls within the limit of variation incident to the 
system of plat experimentation. 
DEPTH OF PLANTING. 
On May 18 we planted one row each of Waushakum corn at different 
depths. ‘lhirty-eight hills in a row, and six kernels in a hill, or two hun- 
dred and twenty-eight kernels in all. ‘he vegetations were as below: 

