80 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
No. 5.—A Record of Trials of various Fertilizers upon the Plain- 
jield of the Bussey Institution. By F. H. Storer. First Re- 
port.* Results obtained in 1871. 
THE Plain-field of the Bussey Institution is a strip of table-land 
about seven acres in extent, at the top of a hillock, or ridge, of ‘ drift” 
or glacial gravel. The ridge rises abruptly from the level of a stream 
of water called Stony Brook, on the one hand, and from a low, boggy 
valley on the other. Ata height of some ninety or more feet above 
the bed of the stream the ridge is crowned by a remarkably level 
plain, of which the “ Plain-field,” belonging to the University, com- 
prises perhaps one half. A couple of acres of the most level part of 
the field were selected for the experiments now to be described. } 
The soil of the Plain-field consists of a thin layer of loam, resting 
upon a deep bed of coarse, open gravel. No constant supply of water 
can be obtained by sinking wells in this gravel until a depth of fifty 
or sixty feet has been reached. Naturally the soil of the field seems 
to have been remarkably homogeneous throughout, and the portion 
chosen for the experiments was taken in the belief and upon the assur- 
-ance that nothing had ever been done to vitiate the original homo- 
geneity ; but, as will be seen on inspecting the results recorded below, 
it turned out that a small patch at one end of the experimental field, 
comprising Sections A and A A, and touching Section B, as shown in 
the diagram, was much richer than the rest. With this not very im- 
portant exception, the field was remarkably well suited for the purpose 
for which it was taken. It may indeed be regarded as a typical 
example of the thin, light, “ leachy” soils which so frequently overlie 
the gravelly drift of New England. 
In 1870 the field, with the exception of Sections A and A A, had car- 
ried a crop of winter rye (unmanured), which was wellnigh destroyed: 
by a hail-storm in the spring of that year. Previous to the time when 
‘the rye was planted, the field had been down to grass some six or 
eight years, without manure. Before the grass a small crop of Indian 
corn had been taken from the land. 
¥ Presented to a Committee of the Trustees"of the Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture, December 3, 1871. 
