22 PROCEEDINGS AT GENERAL MEETINGS. 



whicli the article was purchased, he (the chemist) shall report such discrepaucj- in full 

 detail to the Chemical Committee, and along with his report shall forward the invoice, 

 guarantee, and any other documents he may have received in connection with the case, 

 and any correspondence which may have i)assed between him and the vendor on the 

 subject ; that thereupon the Chemical Committee shall consider the whole circumstances 

 of the case ; and if it appears to them that in the interests of the Society and of agri- 

 culture generally the facts of the case and the name of the vendor should be pulilished, 

 they shall prepare a report and submit it to the Society's law agents for their opinion, 

 and shall then submit their report along with the opinion of the Society's law agents 

 to the directors of the Society, who shall be empowered to deal with the matter in 

 such way they shall deem best. 3d, That a table of the current values at the port of 

 Leitli of the units of the various constituents of artificial manures and feeding stuffs in 

 common use be prepared by the chemist periodically, and submitted to the directors 

 for ajiproval and publication. The board on the 7th May unanimously approved of 

 the recommendations, and remitted to the convener of the Chemical Committee to 

 bring them before this general meeting. 



Mr Hope, Leith, said he thought that the members of the Society were much 

 obliged to the committee for the promj^t manner in which they had acted in connection 

 with the matters referred to in the report, which were very important, considering the 

 way in which they had been dealing in artificial manures and feeding stuffs. He 

 hoped that they would go a little further — which would be a help in these liard times 

 for agriculture — and subsidise their chemist, so that he would be able to give them 

 analyses at the same rate as the local associations did. He was sure they could not 

 spend their money in a better way at the i^resent time. It was only those who were 

 acquainted witli the trade who knew the amount of money lost by the farmers on 

 account of their ignorance as to what they were dealing in. He hoped that the com- 

 mittee would take that matter into consideration, and, it possible, adopt the sug- 

 gestion. 



Mr Mackenzie said that they were not able to take up the question of subsidising 

 the chemist, because they were not authorised to have analyses made at rates less than 

 those of other chemists. 



Mr Hope said he wished to give notice of a motion to the effect of what he had 

 suggested. 



Lord Denman said that he had lost two animals from bad feeding, and it would be 

 a good thing if steps were taken so that people would know not to emjiloy vendors of 

 l)ad articles, and also where good feeding stuffs could be purchased. 



The report was adopted. 



The Society's Experimental Stations. — Dr Aitkex, chemist to the Society, in 

 reporting on the above, said — I take the earliest opportunity to lay before you a few 

 statistics of the first year's cropping on the agricultural experimental stations of the 

 Societj". At the date of last general meeting the croj^s had been more than a month 

 under snow, and for two months thereafter they were in the same condition. Occa- 

 sional thaws exposed them now and then, and put them in great danger ; but on 

 the whole they were well protected by the winter's snow. Considering the wide- 

 spread injury done to the turnip crop from the extreme se\'erity and long duration 

 of the frost during the past winter, it is satisfactory to be alile to report that the crop 

 of Swedes at Harelaw was got in in fair condition, although that operation was not 

 comijleted till the beginning of April. At Pumpherston, where the crop was yellow 

 turnips, an attempt was made to get it in during a temporary thaw in January, but 

 half was not lifted when a sharj) frost set in, which jait a stop to all field work. 

 The part of the crop left in the ground suffered so much injury thereafter, that, 

 although it was able to l)e taken off the ground, it was scarcely fit for use as fodder, 

 and almost useless for experimental purposes. In the remarks which follow I shall 

 therefore confine myself to the crop of Swedes on the Harelaw station, leaving the 

 results at Pumphei-ston, which are somewhat irregular, and not altogether trustworthy, 

 to be read in conjunction with the report of tlie crop which is at ]iresent in the 

 ground. The statistics, so far as they have yet been arrived at, regarding the experi- 

 ments at Harelaw, confirm in most particulars the anticipations which I ventured to 

 make in my last report. The advantage is in favour of the dissolved manures in 

 every instance, and this advantage amounts to 24 cwt. per acre on the average, or, in 

 other words, about 12 per cent, more turnips were produced by the dissolved than 

 by the undissolved phosphates. The results enable us to see which kind of phos- 

 phatic manure has acted most rapidly on the crop. In this respect phosphatic 

 guano and ground apatite take the lead in both series, and it is remarkaljle how 

 exactly tlieir results agree. These two substances, when dissolved, have jiroduced 

 the heaviest crop on the whole station— that is to say, " superiiliosjihate," made from 

 these materials, with the addition of the uuiform amount of nitrogenous and potassic 

 manures. Bone dust is slower in its action than the other phosphatic manures, aud in 

 the undissolved state has produced only 5 cwt. per acre more than plot 11, whicli hail 



