00 RETORT OF FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 



REPORT OF FIELD EXPERIMENTS 



ON THE ACTION OF AN EQUAL MONET VALUE OF DIFFERENT TOP-DRESSINGS 

 ON WHEAT, GRASS, AND CABBAGE IN 1866. 



By Russell Swanwick, Whittington, Chesterfield. 

 [Premium — The Gold Medal] 



In these experiments the money value of the dressing was taken 

 as the most convenient standard, there not being sufficient time 

 to have the manures anal} T sed, and so prepared as to apportion 

 exactly equal quantities of the valuable constituents. The price 

 of 3 cwt. of the best Peruvian guano at £13 per ton was taken 

 as a standard value to be applied per acre, and each dressing 

 was applied in such quantity as to give that value, namely, 39s. 

 per acre. Portions of all the dressings were placed in bottles, 

 and carefully analysed, which analyses are given in Table I., so 

 that any of the dressings being proportionately too high in price 

 the error can be taken into account. The prices given for the 

 manures are high, owing to their having been bought only in 

 small quantities, but it was thought better to reckon the amount 

 to be applied by these prices than to mislead by taking them 

 too low. Manor Farm, on which these experiments were tried, 

 is situated in Wiltshire, and lies on the Oxford clay, about 450 

 feet above the level of the sea. It is all the heaviest description 

 of clay, and was until lately a complete wilderness. An interest- 

 ing account of the improvements made by Mr Edmund Ruck is 

 contained in the " Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society " of 

 1866, by Dr Voelcker. 



EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 



The land on which these were tried is not yet under drained, 

 but the clay is thrown up in ridges or " lands." These lands are 

 8 feet wide, and when first thrown up are raised about 6 or 8 

 inches above the furrow. The wheat (Shirreff's bearded white) 

 had been drilled in the autumn on land hand dug — which method 

 on this remarkably heavy land is found the best, and one digging 

 at 26s. 8d. per acre equal to two or three ploughings — after man- 

 golds, which had received 6 tons dung, 1 J cwt. salt, 1^ guano, and 

 2,\ superphosphate. Before the mangolds it had been under Italian 

 ryegrass, fed off with cattle and sheep. Before that there had 

 been a crop of wheat. The land must be considered as being in 

 rather low condition, having been in possession of the present 

 owner for only four years previous, and before that very badly 

 farmed. An inferior part of the field was chosen, as the object 

 of the experiments was not to see how large a crop could be 

 obtained, but whether top-dressings applied on a poor crop 

 would be remunerative. The dressings were applied on April 



