TILE AGRICULTURAL EXPEKIMENTS AT WOBURN. 259 



THE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS AT WOBUKN. 

 By Dr Ajjdrew P. Aitken, Chenust to the Society. 



The Woburn Experimental Station is on the property of His 

 (Irace the Duke of Bedford, by whom it was presented to the 

 Koyal At^^ricultural Society of England. It is a few miles furtlicr 

 from London than liothamsted, and is readied l)y the same line 

 of railway, the nearest station being Woburn Sands. 



The experiments were begun in 1877, and are under the direc- 

 tion of [)r Volcker. Their object is " to determine the money 

 value of tlie manures obtained by the consumption of different 

 articles of food." At this time, when outgoing tenants may 

 tlemand compensation for the value of unexhausted manures 

 derived from purchased food consumed upon the land, and when 

 the valuation of these is made a subject f(jr arbitration, it is very 

 important that some reliable data, derived from actual experi- 

 ment, should be provided on which to found such valuations. 

 The only serious attempt hitherto made to supply data of that 

 kind is "that of Dr J. B. Lawes, who, in an article on " The 

 Valuation of Unexhausted ]\Ianures," piiblished in the " Journal 

 of Iloyal Agricultural Society," 1875, furnishes a list of values 

 founded on the results of a series of feeding experiments con- 

 ducted at Eothamsted many years ago. The Woburn experi- 

 ments are intended to test the accuracy of these values, and the 

 counsel and co-operation of Dr Lawes were obtained when they 

 were being arranged and set agoing. 



Besides these there is another series of experiments at Woburn 

 on the continuous growing of wheat and barley, for the purpose 

 of repeating on the very different soil of that district some of the 

 more important experiments which have been going on for so 

 many years at Eothamsted. The soil at Woburn is a light 

 loam, with a subsoil of sand. For the main investifration regard- 

 ing the values of imexliausted food-manures exactly 16 acres 

 have been set apart ; and to prevent the risk of failure from 

 attempting too much the inquiry is limited at present to a com- 

 ]iarison between the values of the manures derived from only two 

 feeding stuffs, — decorticated cotton cake and maize meal, — the 

 former of wluch is rich in nitrogen, and has a high manurial 

 value, while the latter is poor in nitrogen, and has a low manurial 

 value. The crops raised by the application of manures derived 

 from the consumption of equal quantities of these two kinds of 

 food will not only be compared with each other, but also with 

 adjacent crops grown with artificial manures calculated to con- 

 tain the same amounts of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash as 

 tbe manures derived from each of the two kinds of food referred to. 



The system of cropping is a four years' rotation of roots, barley, 

 seeds, and wheat ; and to afford a sufficient check on the results. 



