9G REPORT OF FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 



With the exception of the week after the first cutting — namely, 

 the last week of June, when the rain fell in such torrents as to 

 run off the closely mown ground — there was considerably less 

 than an average of rain up to the end of August. Then during 

 September there was a large excess of rain, with remarkably 

 cold, dull weather. In October, the weather was more suitable, 

 and during this time the grass grew nearly as much as during 

 the other three months. In the second cutting, owing to the 

 difficulty of getting the grass cut dry, some time elapsed between 

 the cuttings of the various plots, but they were always cut in 

 sections, one complete series being cut at a time. Thus, section 

 1 was cut first during the last week of October. Sections 2 

 and 3 were cut on October 27th, and section 4 not till November 

 6th. The weights of grass appear in Tables IV. and V. In this 

 latter table the hay has been valued at £4 per ton, and the grass 

 at 7s. It will be seen from this that the nitrate of soda, with 

 sulphate of ammonia, has paid best, and next the guano, and 

 that the rest have only paid very slightly ; and in the case of 

 sulphate of ammonia alone, and chloride of potassium, there is a 

 considerable loss. The dryness of the weather at the time of ap- 

 plication, and the consequent scorching by the sulphate of 

 ammonia, quite accounts for its not having succeeded, and points 

 out the great importance of applying sulphate of ammonia very 

 early, before there is much grass to be scorched, and when there 

 is a probability of plenty of rain. The immediate profit from 

 the guano, besides the benefit to the succeeding crop, which is 

 evident already, shows that by an early application the guano 

 would be the most profitable one at the prices at which the 

 manures were taken, that is, on the soil in question, an analysis 

 of which is given in the "Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society," referred to previously, and from which the soil appears 

 poor in phosphates and alkalies. The slow effect of the mixture 

 of bone-ash, superphosphate, with the chloride of potassium and 

 sulphate of ammonia, is evident on the second crop, and on the 

 young grass this spring ; and if the chloride of potassium, which 

 seems to have had little effect, had been replaced by sulphate of 

 ammonia, the immediate effect might have been on a par with 

 the guano. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CABBAGE. 



The land on which these experiments were tried is of much 

 the same quality as the wheat land, but has only been broken 

 up from permanent pasture four years. It was mole-drained 

 then, but is still wet. The previous crop had been wheat, on the 

 stubble of which a light dressing of four tons of dung had been 

 spread, and ploughed in for the cabbage. The wheat had re- 

 ceived a dressing of \\ cwt. of salt, H cwt. of guano, and 2\ 



