280 REPORT OF THE FARM SUPERINTENDENT OF THE 
In GENERAL. 
The crop on all these plats this season consisted of Timothy, 
Alsike clover, with very little Red clover, some Yellow Trefoil, and 
on the western side more conspicuously than elsewhere, some 
Wire grass (Poa compressa). 
Clovers have been found* to. contain a higher percentage “e 
water than grasses. Hence where, as in the case of the crop on 
these plats, the herbage is mixed, there could easily be a greater 
yield of green substance accompanying a yield of less dry matter 
on one plat than on another with which it may be compared. 
Therefore in making comparisons of the green crop and hay 
actually harvested, this difference must be borne in mind. 
The effect of the nitrogenous fertilizers applied this season, the 
same as those applied in 1888, has been to stimulate the growth 
of grass as compared with clover, and to crowd the clover out. 
This gives a crop of somewhat less water content if the relation 
of water*to dry matter in clover and Timothy found, as cited 
above, existed on these plats. This point was not specially 
investigated. 
The yields of hay from the several plats were also found to vary 
considerably in their water content. This might possibly be due 
to a difference in the ability of the grass and clover to hold — 
moisture — their hygroscopicity — but it is more probable to sup- ~ 
pose it to have been mostly due to inequalities in spreading and 
handling the grass in the process of curing, as it is very easy for 
different workmen, or the same man at different times, to spread 
more or less thoroughly, and the thinner spread grass would 
make the dryer hay. 
Taking this view of the case, the dry matter calculated from the - 
actual yields per plat, from the per cent of dry matter found in 
the samples, has been used to recalculate hay at‘’a uniform per © 
cent of moisture. The average found in each series has been 
used as the water content for that series, hence there is a difter- 
ence of 3.89 per cent in the water content of the calculated yields 
from the two series, that of 1889 being the dryer hay. 
This yield ‘of hay corrected to uniform water content appears 
to be the most reliable set of figures on which to base a com- 

* Station report, 1886. page 342; 1888, page 242. Bulletin Illinois Experi- 
ment Station, No. 5. 
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