New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 319 
1898. Effects not at all uniform, the product of the trees 
in the same plats differing as much as the products from dif- 
ferent plats. | 
1899. Slight improvement in color of Baldwins and Northern 
Spys, the red sorts, no difference in Rhode Island Greening, 
Fall Pippin and Roxbury, the green varieties. 
1900. No differences could be noted. 
I90I.- Small crop of undersized fruit all poorly colored and 
no difference in favor of either set of plats. 
1902. All of the treated plats showed more brilliant colors, 
though the differences could scarcely be noted in the green 
varieties. 
1903. No crop. 
1904. Differences slight and variable and not to be counted 
in favor of either treated or untreated trees. 
Taken as a whole, the results are disappointing. They lack 
uniformity and were not decided enough in a sufficient number 
of the twelve seasons to enable us to state that the addition of 
_ the substances applied heightened the color of apples under the 
conditions of this experiment. The effects varied not only from 
season to season, but varieties varied greatly in some seasons, 
and in others the same variety would color differently in plats 
receiving the same treatment. When we consider the number 
of factors which are known to influence color in fruit we cannot 
assume with any degree of certainty that the results set forth 
above show that the addition of these fertilizers changed the 
color of the fruit in this experiment in any season; thus, ex- 
posure to light; the intensity of the light; amount of foliage on 
the tree; the healthfulness of the foliage; the amount of stored 
food in the plant; soil heat; the texture of the soil; all of these, 
besides potash and phosphoric acid, have an influence. ‘The re- 
lations of these factors are so intricate that it is almost impos- 
sible to separate them in an experiment like this, and especially 
as the differences were so slight. 
A comparison of the color data with meteorological data for 
the twelve-year period shows that the treatment seemed to have 
an influence in coloring fruit only in those years when the apple 
did not develop well, as in 1893 and 1902; and that in other 
seasons, as in 1896, 1900, 1904, when climatic conditions were 
favorable to the development of fruit and foliage, the coloring 
was as nearly perfect on the untreated as on the treated plats. 
