New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 161 
An unsprayed row yielded 1271 pounds, at the rate of 3053 
bushels per acre, while a sprayed row next to it yielded 1516 
pounds, or at the rate of 31614 bushels per acre, making a ditfer- 
ence of only 10 5-6 bushels per acre in favor of spraying. This is 
the least gain of any in the 41 volunteer experiments. The ex- 
plantation of it is that there was no blight. 
TIortunately, we had the opportunity of watching this experi- 
ment. Throughout the whole season, the plants, unsprayed as 
well as sprayed, remained entirely free from blight, but why 
this should be so is not clear. The vines grew large, completely 
covering the ground and the soil was moderately heavy, being a 
sandy loam with some gravel in it. Neither was the location 
unfavorable to blight and several other fields in the vicinity 
blighted badly. But whatever the cause it is a fact that blight 
was absent from this field. Bugs, too, were almost entirely absent 
although no poison was used. No damage was done by flea- 
‘beetles. 
By September 7 it was noticeable that the unsprayed rows 
were not as dark green in color as the sprayed rows next to them. 
This ditference in color gradually became more pronounced. 
Finally, by September 19 the unsprayed rows began to turn 
brown and die earlier than the sprayed and then the unsprayed 
rows could be easily traced clear across the field by the difference 
in color. As there seemed to be no blight it is not easy to 
explain why the unsprayed rows should die first, but such was 
the case. 
The results of this experiment tend to support the theory that 
spraying may be beneficial even when there is no blight or 
insects to fight. It appears that bordeaux mixture has a stimu- 
lating effect on potato foliage. 
The market price of potatoes at digging time was 40 cents. 
EXPERIMENT No. 24. 
Conducted by J. V. Salisbury & Sons, north of Phelps. In this 
experiment seven acres of potatoes (Rural New Yorker No. 2 
and Carman No. 3 mixed) were sprayed four times with a two- 
horse, Aroostook power sprayer covering Six rows at a time with 
one Vermorel nozzle per row. This is the same sprayer used in 
their experiments in 1903. (See Bulletin 241, pages 269 to 276, 
11 
