14 PROCEEDINGS AT GENEEAL MEETINGS. 



extensive scheme of experiments which received the sanction of the Society at its meet- 

 ing six months ago has now fairiy begun. The manures liave been made up with the 

 utmost care, and applied to the soil with great precision, tlie seed has been sown, and 

 under favourable circumstances will be brairding in a few days. The . rop at both 

 stations is lor this season tm-nips. At Harelaw swedes have been planted, and at 

 Pumpherston yellow turnips. Before I shall have the opportunity of addressing you 

 again, the crops shall have been gathered in, and considerable progress has been made 

 ill estimating and formulating the results of the first year's experiments. I trust it is 

 not too much to hope that ere that time many members of the Society will have made 

 themselves familiar with the work going on at the stations, by visiting them and .-^ub- 

 mitting them to a careful and critical examination. I shall not weary you with any 

 detailed description of the various experiments. They were fully described at a former 

 meeting, and are recorded in the " Proceedings " of the Society which have recently been 

 published. The general character of the experiments is easily comprehended. It is a 

 series of about forty experiments, to determine how far the form in which a manure is 

 applied affects its efficacy as a crop producer. There are various other minor, though 

 by no means unimportant, questions which are being answered at the stations, but that 

 is the great one. A moment's consideration "will show that in order to answer that 

 question, the first great requisite is to secure that the manurial treatment of all the 

 plots emi^loyed for that purpose shall, as far as jjossible, differ only in the form of the 

 manure, and in nothing else ; for every condition lieing the same exceiot that of the form 

 of the manure, any difierence in the crop must be due to that difference of form. To make 

 up a series of manures so difl"ering and so related is a matter of very considerable nicety 

 and difficulty; but it has been successfully accomplished. Of the 40 rood-plots into 

 which each "station has been divided, 35 are taken up with the inquiry just mdicated. 

 To these have been applied the various kinds of phosphatic manures, nitrogenous 

 manure, potash manures, guanos, and superphosphates. That is wherein they differ; 

 but they all agree in this, that the manure of each plot contains 40 lb. j^hosphoric acid, 

 30 lb. potash, and 10 lb. nitrogen. Hence, whatever diflerences may be observed in the 

 amount or character of the crop on the various plots must be due, not to any difference 

 in the proportions or t(;tal amount of plant food applied to them, but solely to the 

 special form in which it has been applied. Care has been taken also to regulate, as far 

 £is possible, the amounts of the other important constituents of plant food — viz., lime, 

 magnesia, and sulphuric acid. In plots 1 to 10, for instance, there are 10 forms of 

 phosphatic manure ; 5 of these are dissolved and 5 undissolved ; the former contain con- 

 siderable quantities of sulphuric acid, the latter contain perhaps none. To equalise 

 these as far as possible, and prevent the very different amounts of sulphuric acid from 

 interfering with the experiment, the undissolved phosphates had their SOlli. of potash 

 made up by the addition of sulphate of potash, the others by the addition of muriate of 

 potash. This kind of compensation Avill be noticed throughout the various plots. A 

 few slight changes have been introduced into our scheme since last meeting. Plot ;i3 

 has been made "a duplicate of 14 rather than of 13; and plot 35, on which it was pro- 

 posed to try the effect of the application of guano in various amounts, has been set 

 apart for two experiments which, under ])reseut circum.stances, are much more important 

 — viz., a comparison of the fertilizing power of rape cake and decortic;itcd cotton cake, 

 and the comparison of both these with the other forms of nitrogenous niatiures in plots 

 13 to 18. The use of rape cake as a manure is well known, but it is onjy of late that 

 decorticated cotton cake has been obtainable at such a price as to recommend it for use 

 as a manure. It is now selling at a xirice about equal to its manurial value. It is there- 

 fore very desirable that we should test its fertilizing power with that of rape dust and 

 other nitrogenous manures. Plot 36 is divided into 24 small jiortions, each l-lliith of 

 an acre in extent. Manures were prepared for 22 of these, exactly corresponding to 

 those applied to the rood-plots 1 to 22, and in exactly the same proportion per acre. 

 riot 36 is thus a kind of miniature station containing duplicate expeii:m>r,ts of those 

 put down in the first 22 rood-plots. This is the method of procedure ar^.pted by the 

 Aberdeenshire Agricultural Association at their stations, and I believe with very satis- 

 factory results, "a recent visit which I paid to one of these stations at Cluny impressed 

 me very favourably with the suitability of such small plots for the performance of 

 accurate, reliable experiments ; and I am inclined to attach very considerable im- 

 portance to the results of the experiments conducted in plot 36. Plot 38 has been used for 

 the purpose of making two experiments with sulphuric acid. The manure is sulphate 

 of lime largely impregnated with free sulphuric acid, and, like plots 31 to 34, is applied 

 in two proportions, the one-half of the plot receiving a double dose of the manure. 

 This plot will serve to show how much of the action of dissolved manure is due to the 

 sulphuric acid which they contain. Plots 39 and 40 are set apart for continuous 

 white crops, and were sown with barley — at Harelaw on the 10th, and at Pumpherston 

 on the 11th of Ai)ril. Thick sowing was adopted at the former, and thin sowing at the 

 latter station. The seed was the same in both, and the land received no manure for 

 tins crop. These two plots will be split in two, and cropped similarly during the whole 



