e 
170 REPORT OF THE HORTICULTURIST OF THE 
As appears, the yield was somewhat larger from the drills in 
which the fertilizer was placed below the seed, the difference 
amounting to 36 pounds of merchantable potatoes on one-twentieth 
of an acre, or 4 bushels 48 pounds per acre. 
From one experiment, however, this difference is too small to 
be seriously considered, as we should regard two acres similarly 
treated that yielded so nearly alike as little else than duplicates, 
at least until the case were strengthened by several trials. 
THE CONSUMPTION OF THE SEED TUBER BY THE PLANT. 
Object of the experiment: 'To ascertain the cause of the more 
rapid consumption of the seed tuber on rich than on poor soil.* 
Tt has been shown in the places cited that the stored nutriment 
of the seed tuber was more rapidly consumed on rich than on 
poor soil. The only reason for this fact that occurred to me, was 
the assumption that the plants on the poor soil, being less abun- 
dantly supplied with moisture than those on the rich soil, were 
- restricted in their power to appropriate the patrimony furnished 
them in the seed tuber, 
As a test for this hypothesis, two short rows of tubers, of known 
weight and dry matter content, were planted on the poor soil used 
in the preceding experiments in this connection, and when the 
plants had made some growth one of the rows was mulched with 
a layer of washed sand about an inch in thickness. Thus the two 
rows were under equal conditions, with the exception that the 
mulched row was better supplied with moisture. ! 
Three tubers dried at the time of planting were found to contain 
21.72 per cent of dry matter. On July 7, two seed tubers 
removed from the row mulched with sand were found to contain 
6.13 and 6.24 per cent of dry matter respectively, while two 
removed from the row not mulched contained 8.82 and 8.93 per 
cent respectively, showing that the consumption was considerably 
faster in the mulched rows. 
From the time the rows were mulched until the seed tubers 
were removed, there was but one period during which the ground 
was sufficiently dry so that crops appeared to suffer. We are 
justified in the inference therefore, that the slower appropriation 


* See Report New York Agricultural Experiment Station, 1886, pp. 158-9; 
Agricultural Science IT, p. 27. 
