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New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 217 
GENERAL CONDITIONS ATTENDING EXPERIMENTS. 
It is seen by referring to Bulletin 137 that the crop of: 1897 
was planted on timothy sod in two cases and on corn stubble in 
two. 
Nothing in the way of organic matter was added to any plat 
for the first two years of the experiments. In 1898 Fleet and 
Halleck sowed crimson clover after the potato crop was har- 
vested and Jagger sowed rye. In neither case did the clover 
amount to much. The rye, on the plats receiving 1,000 Ibs. of 
fertilizer per acre or over, had made a thick growth of four 
-inches in height when it was plowed down on April 2, 1899. 
In. 1899 crimson clover was sown on all four farms after the 
potatoes were dug. 
On Fleet’s farm the clover winter-killed considerably, and 
where it did not the growth was rather small. Hallock reported 
a heavy growth in the fall which was continued in the spring 
until plowing. The clover made a slendid sod in Jagger’s field 
_ excepting where grasshoppers worked, on which part rye was 
sown with success. Robbins sowed the clover seed rather late, 
but the plants made a fairly good catch, and when plowed under. 
in the spring covered most of the ground. 
Reference to the figures for the yield of potatoes in 1899 shows 
that the crop was very small and in marked contrast to the crops 
of the two previous years. This is explained by the severe 
drought which prevailed all over Long Island during the growing 
season for early potatoes. The crop for 1900 was larger but not 
satisfactory. 
It should be said that these fields of potatos were under the 
care of experienced and reliable farmers, and were given the care 
believed to be essential to successful potato growing. . 
EXPERIMENTS IN 1899 AND 1900. 
In the following tables are given the results in detail of the 
yields of potatoes during 1899 and 1900. Similar data for 1897 
and 1898 may be found in Bulletins 187 and 154, 
