EXPERIMENTS OX THE CULTURE OF TURNIPS. 259 



siderable difference, in the growth of the succeeding barley crop 

 in favour of the late pulling. To this latter cause I mainly 

 attributed the deficiency of crop shown by the two experimental 

 sections which received farmyard manure, this deficiency 

 amounting to not less than two- tenths below the average crop 

 of the field. The deductions to be drawn from the results of 

 the growth of barley on the last year's turnip plots are as 

 follows : — 



Phosphates, whether ground or soluble, applied to the turnip 

 crop also assist the following barley crop, and both apparently 

 to an equal extent. Nitrogen applied to the turnip crop in ad- 

 dition to phosphates still further increases the succeeding barley 

 crop, and, to a great extent, shov/s the difference at once in 

 starting away the plants in the earlier stages of gTowth much 

 faster than phosphates alone. Potash applied for the turnip 

 crop ulthnately has as good an effect on the barley crop, but 

 does not start the plant so quickly. Each of these manures 

 separately has an appreciable effect on the barley crop ; the 

 plain inference, therefore, is, that all three combined and applied 

 to the preceding turnip crop would give the best results in the 

 succeeding barley crop. 



The different forms of nitrogen used ultimately gave pretty 

 equal results, with the exception of bone-meal, which gave 

 little if any better results than ground coprolite ; a rather sur- 

 prising result, seeing it contained a considerable percentage of 

 nitrogen in combination with the phosphates. 



I fully expected that the quantity of soluble manure which 

 was applied to the barley crop would have started it on the 

 plots, and can only explain its failure to do so on the hypothesis 

 that plants do not take up the artificially applied food so readily 

 or quickly as is generally supposed. This more particularly 

 applies to quickly growing cereals. That the general crop of 

 the field, with its heavy dressing of farmyard and artificial 

 manures applied to the preceding turnip crop, should start away 

 vigorously and grow a full crop of barley, was only to be ex- 

 pected, as the large quantity of nitrogen and potash contained 

 in the turnip dressing, owing to their combination, would only 

 in a very limited degree be taken up by tluit crop. Therefore, 

 leaving a large residue of those constituents thoroughly incor- 

 porated with the soil, a portion of them most undoubtedly being 

 in a suitable condition for being immeiliately assimilated by the 

 succeeding crop. Comparatively speaking, therefore, results 

 consideralily in favour of farmyard manure were only to be 

 looked for in the barley crop, anil may reasonably be exi^ected 

 in the succeeding grass crojts. 



i shall now refer to the results ol)tained from the analysis of 

 tie samples of turnips sent to ]>r Aitkcn. 



