VALUE OF EXPERIMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18762, 16 July 1924, Page 14

VALUE OF EXPERIMENTS.

CROPS AND FERTILISERS.

The Agricultural Experimental Stations scattered throughout the country have thrown light upon many problems connected with the growth of crops and the use of fertilisers, states a writer in ,the Mark Lane Express, bnt one may be permitted to ask whether they could not afford more practical guidance to farmers as to how they could increase the yield of their crops and improve their quality on an economical basis. There is a monotony in the reports from stations which, it seems to us, might be broken with advantage. Year after year we read repots of just the same kind of experiments on plots—" no manure,"' ** potash omitted," "phosphate omitted,'* "nitrogen omitted," and a complete manure plot. Naturally in about nine cases out of ten the complete manure gives the best results. This is _an established fact, and therefore is it not superfluous, to continue on the same lines ? Let it then be assumed that; " complete " manures are, under normal conditions, to be recommended, /and the tests should be now more often framed to ascertain in what proportions in different kinds of soil and different crops the three essential plant foods, nitrogen, phosphates and potash, can be applied with the best hope of a good yield and with most profit in the course of the rotation. And again, the work at a station fails in its object unless the local farmer takes a direct interest in the experiments, and visits the station from time to time to observe the results and discuss them with the experts of the station. Farmers should carry out experiments in their own fields, for which purpose experts of the station should bo ready to give advice and help in organising the experiment, and should also arrange to supervise the weighing, etc., of the experimental crop. This, we know, is already done at some important stations, but we plead for a more general extension of such arrangements. The great station at Bothamstcd is an example of what can be done, and smaller stations might follow the same lines on a more modest scale. They would have th«i satisfaction of feeling that they were in touch with the practical side, and wew justifying their ertatenca terfhezJx&t&i'exLcn&j