10 THE FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE IN AGEICULTURE. 



IV. Vegetahh Matter. 



I shall now endeavour to show the value of vegetable matter 

 as a fertiliser. Having farmed in three different counties in 

 Scotland, and having expended perhaps as much money on 

 manures and feeding stuffs as any other farmer to a like extent 

 of land, I shall in the first place give a brief sketch of my own 

 experience. 



The first two farms occupied by me in different counties were 

 both low-lying farms, with a fair supply of vegetable matter 

 in the soil. The first about an average of 120 feet above sea- 

 level ; the second varying from only ten to twenty feet above 

 the sea. On both these farms I had little difficulty in raising 

 full crops, and on the latter, after having it down to grass seven 

 years, and after two crops of oats, I have had thirty tons an acre 

 of turnips, with a moderate quantity of byre dung alone, and the 

 grain crops were too much to stand. Having already referred to 

 the luxuriance of the grass on this farm in a former essay, I pass 

 on to the third farm, bordering the Moray Frith. The height above 

 sea-level varies from 250 feet to 550 feet, and upon the old red 

 sandstone and red congjlomerate rocks. This farm had been 

 worked on a five course rotation previous to my entry, and so 

 completely exhausted of vegetable matter, that I found with heavy 

 top-dressings of nitrogenous and phosphatic manures mixed, I 

 could not pass three and a half quarters oats per acre on an ave- 

 rage, and eight hundredweight of Peruvian guano and bone meal 

 of best quality mixed, along with half dung, would only give me 

 about an average of fifteen tons of turnips per acre, and the grass 

 was miserable. The farm being naturally dry, with considerable 

 fall, no doubt tended to lessen the quantity of vegetable matter 

 in the soil. It was a losing concern, and to have pursued the 

 former course of manasfement was evidently to lose a deal of 

 money. Having had my attention drawn to the virtue of vege- 

 table matter as a fertiliser long before, although never put to the 

 test in such a fashion as this, I soon came to the conclusion that 

 I should plough up no grass land until I had first enriched it in 

 veo-etable matter. First of all I sowed natural cjrasses on all the 

 grass land, and commenced top-dressing it with bone meal and 

 shell sand, and having continued to feed sheep on it, with cake, 

 oats, and turnips, &c., ever since, the change is very great. The 

 numbers of both cattle and sheep that can now be maintained 

 on the farm are quite doubled. But there is one part of the 

 farm deserving particular notice, namely, that part bounded by 

 rocks, 400 feet high. Adjoining these rocks the surface soil 

 appears to be deeper than any other part of the farm, and of a 

 pretty reddish colour, and farmers are ready to exclaim, " Oh, 

 what fine land ! " If colour and depth of soil would make fine 

 land they would have been right, but unfortunately it does not ; 



