IIG ON EESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS WITH 



crop too much care cannot be taken, evspecially neither to plough 

 nor sow if the soil is in a wet condition. 



Wheat. — I have never depended much upon manufactured 

 manures for the growth of this crop. I have always given it from 

 fifteen to twenty tons of town or farm-yard manure, with a top 

 dressing in spring of 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda or 2 cwts. of guano, 

 both of which when added have had a marked effect, and on the 

 thinner soils both pay very well. The guano, however, is prefer- 

 able for quality of grain. The nitrate is inclined to make the 

 crop a little later, and the grain a shade darker in colour ; but 

 when straw is wanted, both of them give at least a fourth part 

 more on an average of seasons. 



Turnifs. — This crop, as I mentioned in my introductory 

 remarks, was almost a total failure previous to 1868 on my farm, 

 on account of " finger-and-toe." Previous to that time only a 

 very small breadth of the fallow break was planted with 

 potatoes, and of the portion sown with turnip a very small pro- 

 portion was swedes. This treatment, together with the then wet 

 state of the soil, I have no doubt contributed greatly to foster 

 that great enemy of the turnips. After draining, I set about 

 growing the half of my fallow break in potatoes, and substituting 

 swedes where yellows had been grown five years previously, and 

 yellows where potatoes had been grown. This system of 

 management, together with the liberal use of hot lime, has 

 apparently banished " finger-and-toe " from the farm, as I have 

 seen none of it on my land for nearly ten years, unless now 

 and again on a headland which had been carted on in wet 

 weather, or in what had been a dung stance. I give to the 

 whole of my turnip crop from fifteen to twenty tons of farm- 

 yard manure, applied in drill immediately before sowing the 

 turnips, and all my experiments with artificial manure, as applied 

 to turnips, have been along with that quantity of farm-yard 

 manure. 



In the first place, I may state I could hardly get turnips to 

 come to hoe in my soil without the application of some nitro- 

 genous compound above the farm-yard manure. I have tried it 

 several times, and in every case had not half my ordinary crop, 

 and besides, it was much later. In some instances, indeed, the 

 young braird was so unhealthy that it died out altogether during 

 trying weather. Even in the best seasons the turnips without 

 nitrogenous manure were from two to three weeks behind those 

 to which it had been applied in being ready for the hoe. I have 

 tried a great many experiments with manure for this crop, in 

 order to arrive at the proper quantity of nitrogen, phosphates, 

 and potash which a turnip manure ought to contain. I shall 

 give a list of four mixtures which have given me the best results, 

 witli their average cost and quantity applied. 



