280 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



when azotic acid was most abundant, there was least ammonia ; the 

 former always increases with stormy weather. Besides these elements, 

 the quantity of chlorine present was equivalent to 18 kilogrammes of 

 marine salt, leaving out the insoluble matters held in suspension. 



Jn all this, we seem to get a glimpse of the law of supply and de- 

 mand in the great vegetative operations of nature ; and we see that 

 those who advocate a more sparing employment of manures are not 

 without good reason for their arguments. In the middle of Russia, 

 corn is grown year after year on the same land, with no other fertil'zer 

 than the burnt straw ; and in parts of Spain, wheat and barley suc- 

 ceed each other without any manure at all. And without going so 

 far for facts, we have them close at hand in one of our midland coun- 

 ties. A few years ago, the Rev. S. Smith, of Lois Weedon, in the 

 neighborhood of Banbury, instituted a course of experiments on this 

 very point, and with results which are singularly interesting. He 

 took a field of Tour acres, having a gravelly soil, with clay, marl, and 

 gravel as the subsoil. It had been hard worked for a hundred years; 

 but except a thorough ploughing, no other means were taken to im- 

 prove it : not a particle of manure was supplied. Wheat was then 

 sown in single grains, three inches apart, and in rows a foot apart, a 

 space of three feet being left quite bare between each three rows, and 

 this was continued in alternate stripes all across the field. The sow- 

 ing took place at the beginning of autumn ; and in November, when 

 the planted rows began to shew, all the intervening three-feet spaces 

 were trenched by the spade, and six inches of the subsoil made to 

 change places with the surface. " In the spring," says the reverend 

 agriculturist, " I well hoed and hand-weeded the rows of wheat, and 

 stirred the intervals with a one-horse scarifier three or four times, up 

 to the very period of flowering in June." The crop looked thin and 

 miserable until after April, when it began ''to mat and tiller;" it did 

 not turn yellow in May, and the stalk grew so stout and strong as to 

 bear up well against the storms. AVhen harvested, the result was 

 highly gratifying, for the yield amounted to from thirty-six to forty 

 bushels per acre, or rather per half acre, seeing that as the alternate 

 stiipes were left bare, only one half of the field was really planted. 

 The quantity of seed used per half acre was a little more than a 

 peck. 



Adjoining the field in which these experiments were carried on 

 was another which had four ploughing*, ten tons of manure, six or 

 seven times as much seed, and yet it gave a quarter less to the acre. 

 This might be looked on as an accident, were it not that Mr. Smith 



^ 



has repeated his experiment year after year, and always with greater 

 success. He believes that if all the conditions be literally fulfilled, 

 the same favorable result may invariably be obtained. No manure 

 whatever is to be used ; and in the second year, the stripe is to be 

 sown which was left bare in the first ; and so on, changing from one 

 to the other, year after year. 



Here arises the question as to cost, and in contrasting the expense 

 of ploughing with that of spade-labor, he finds that he takes up ouly 



