250 



EXPERIMENTS OX THE CULTUEE OF TUEXIPS. 



of " finger and toe," neither are tliey the canse, as the no manure 

 plot was as badly diseased as the others. 



The weather was unusually dry during the latter part of 

 August and beginning of Septemloer, and during this trying 

 ordeal the soluble phosphates sections were the first to show a 

 failure of plant-food, by the shrivelling of the under leaves of 

 the turnip shaws, and by the end of October the difference in 

 the appearance of the shaws of the soluble as compared with the 

 insoluble sections was quite marked, the shaws of the former 

 being pretty well down, and the latter still fresh and green. 



Dr Aitken, the Highland Society's chemist, visited all the 

 stations on 21st of October, and inspected them very carefully. 

 He was very much struck with the appearance of the increase 

 of crop grown by phosphates alone, more especially on the 

 Auchindorie station. The increase grown by the use of potash 

 surprised that gentleman on all the stations, showing much 

 better results than he had obtained from his experiments in the 

 Lothians. 



At this time the superiority of the ground over the soluble 

 phosphate section was quite visible on the Auchindorie and 

 Craichie stations, also on the Sandyford swedes, the Sandy- 

 ford yellows apparently showing very little difference between 

 the two. 



Having received instructions from Dr Aitken for weighing 

 the plots, and also for sampling them for analysis, I, on the 

 27th and 28th of October got this work carefully and satisfac- 

 torily accomplished. The weather during the performance of 

 this operation was very favourable ; the soil also being in fine 

 dry condition, the turnips turned out quite clean. On being 

 lifted, their small rootlets were cut oil', and the shaws separated 

 close to the bulbs. Shaws and roots were weighed separately, 

 and I, along with others, superintended the weighing process. 



Subjoined are the results in tabulated form, calculated up to 

 the weight per acre. 



