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CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT. 



pound per bushel. Now that the manures have been discon- 

 tinued for two years, it might be expected that the differences 

 observed in former years would no longer be noticeable, but 

 such is not the case ; they are still very well marked. If we 

 take, for example, the first ten plots on which the various phos- 

 phatic manures are contrasted, and if we compare the weight 

 of the bushel of barley grown on them in the years 1879, 1883, 

 and 1887, we have the following results : — 



The quality of the grain has improved in each successive 

 crop of barley, owing to improvement on the land and perhaps 

 to the increase of sunshine ; but the superiority of the grain 

 grown on the plots that received dissolved phosphates must be 

 due to the more active form of the manure, or, in other words, 

 the deficiency of available phosphatic material on the plots to 

 which undissolved phosphates were applied lowered the quality 

 of the grain. We must, therefore, conclude that the plots 

 manured with soluble phosphate in former years have still in 

 them a gi'eater amount of phosphate in an available form. 



The plots which have produced the heaviest grain, viz., 57 

 lbs. per bushel last year, are plots 14, 29, and 30, and these are 

 plots which formerly received their nitrogenous manure in the 

 form of sulphate of ammonia, while most of the other plots got 

 nitrate of soda as their nitrogenous constituent. There is 

 another plot. No. 38, which produced grain at 57 lbs. per 

 bushel. It has all along been manured in the same way as 

 plot No. 7, with this difference, that it received, in addition, 

 4 cwt. per acre of supersulphate of lime. This plot has 

 always been one of the best on the station, and it maintains the 

 position to which it steadily advanced. 



Another noteworthy characteristic of the barley grown at 

 Pumpherston in 1887 is the exceedingly small proportion of 

 light grain. It does not average so much as 1 per cent, of 

 the total produce. In former years the proportion of light 

 grain was four or five times greater, but that is a circumstance 

 not so much affected by manuring as by the character of the 



