BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 137 
helped the ruta-bagas at times. Unlike the barley, the bean crops 
did not profit by nitrogen compounds generated in the soil by the 
action of the limes, except perhaps in a few instances. This fact 
accords perfectly with what is known of the action of nitrogenous 
manures upon leguminous crops. The ruta-bagas also, so far as the 
irregularity of the crops permits the inference, rarely profited from 
the application of quicklime other than that from oyster-shells. 
Gypsum occasionally seemed to help the ruta-bagas a little, and some- 
times the barley also, but upon the comparatively fertile soil of Sec- 
tions A and AA it did the beans no good; and the same thing may 
probably be said of that contained in the superphosphates applied to 
Sections C and CC. 7 
The results of the experiments on the comparatively fertile land of 
Sections A and AA clearly strengthen the argument developed on 
page 129, in discussing the results obtained on Section EE by the use 
of mixed fertilizers. Under the conditions that obtained in 1873, the 
land of Sections A and AA was able, of itself, to supply food enough 
for the support of a considerable bean crop, as it had been in the pre- 
vious years, and crops of barley and ruta-bagas that were almost as 
good as those obtained by the use of mixed fertilizers. How little of 
this effect was produced by the limes may be seen by referring to 
squares x, y, and z similarly manured on land contiguous to that upon 
_ which the mixed fertilizers were applied. 
The same line of reasoning is illustrated by a set of experiments 
made in 1873 at West Peabody, Mass., by Mr. Henry Saltonstall, 
Treasurer of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, 
as will be seen from the following table of results which Mr. Saltonstall 
has been kind enough to send me. 
EXPERIMENTS OF Mr. Henry SALTONSTALL. 
The field devoted to these experiments was part of an old worn-out 
pasture that had not been cultivated in any way for a very long 
period. It had not been ploughed for fifty years at the least when 
the sod was turned under in November, 1871. The soil consists of a 
bed of light loam about six inches deep mixed with stones, resting upon 
a gravelly subsoil, and not much better situated with regard to its dis- 
tance from the ground-water than that upon the Plain-field of the 
VOL, 1. 18 
