190 ON CONTINUOUS CORN-GROWING AT PAXTON. 



ON CONTINUOUS CORN-GROWING AT PAXTON, 

 BERWICKSHIRE. 



By George Muirhead, Estate Agent, Paxton, Berwick-on-Tweed. 



[Premium — The Minor Gold Medal.] 



Some years ago Mr Milne Home of Milne Graden commenced a 

 series of agricultural field experiments on the home farm at 

 Paxton, in the parish of Hutton, in this county. The object of 

 these experiments was to try whether the system of continuous 

 corn growing, so successfully pursued at Eothamsted, in Hert- 

 fordshire, by the celebrated Mr Lawes, and by Mr Prout of Saw- 

 bridgeworth, in the same county, would succeed in Berwickshire. 

 The experiments were begun by Mr Milne Home, are still 

 continued by Captain Milne Home of Wedderburn, M.P., and 

 have been carried on under my personal supervision. 



Climate and soil have of course very great influence on the 

 results of agricultural field experiments such as those, and there- 

 fore I may remark that the climate on the home farm at Paxton 

 is somewhat cold and wet, and that the season in spring is con- 

 siderably later than in the earlier parts of this county. The 

 height above the level of the sea is about 130 feet, and the 

 average rainfall about 36 inches. 



The soil upon which the experiments have been made may be 

 described as a heavy brown tenacious loam, about 10 inches in 

 depth, resting on a retentive subsoil of yellowish sandy clay. It 

 is drained 3^ feet deep, at intervals of 30 feet. Its cultivation 

 has been carried on in the usual way followed in the neighbour- 

 hood, with the exception of being once dug by the steam plough 

 10 inches deep in the winter of 1870. Two small fields, lying 

 contiguous to each other, and extending to 4 and 7 acres respec- 

 tively, were selected for the experiments. For the last nine years 

 they have been cropped in the manner and with the results given 

 in the table on the following page. 



I have not given the rent of the land, taxes, working expenses, 

 and cost of seed per acre, in the table, as these are the same 

 from year to year, and therefore do not affect the results of the 

 experiments. I may mention, however, that the quantity of seed 

 drilled in was 2| bushels per acre. 



It will be observed from the following table that the value of 

 the experimental barley per acre, in 1877, was considerably lower 

 than in the two previous years, while the value of the manure 

 applied was higher, but that may be accounted for by the very 

 unfavourable character of that season for the barley crop generally. 

 I found that ordinary rotation barley grown that year upon 

 another field of the home farm, and on better soil, yielded very 

 little more grain per acre than the experimental barley on the 



