EXPERIMENTS ON TUENIPS. 



307 



yield than any of the other plots. It was easy to dung the 

 other plots very equally, as they all lay adjacent, but 28 being 

 detached from the other dunged plots had a separate cart taken 

 to it, and thus probably received rather more than its share. It 

 was also a very dry and favourable piece of ground. Plots 7, 8, 

 and 9 were, on the other hand, the wettest part of the land. 

 These plots might be discarded in considering the results, but, 

 as in experiments with many comparatively small plots, reliance 

 must be placed principally in averages, it has been considered 

 better not to do so, but to include these pints in the tables of 



averages. 



The field on which the plots were put in 1883 had borne oat 

 crops in both 1881 and 1882. Previously it had been long in 

 grass, and was in a poor state, bringing 18s. per acre at public 

 roup. The first oat crop was manured with 3 cwt. Peruvian 

 guano (6J per cent, ammonia, 37 per cent, phosphates), and 

 drains were put in the stubble 3 feet deep and 15 feet apart. 

 The second oat crop got 2 cwt. superphosphate (28 per cent.) and 

 1 cwt. good dissolved bones with the seed, and a top-dressing of 

 1 cwt. nitrate soda after brairding ; 5 tons lime were laid on this 

 stubble in the middle of January. The part of the field chosen 

 for experiment seemed very uniform, and though of the same 

 nature was scarcely so clayey as the experimented ground of the 

 previous season. The size and number of the plots were the 

 same, but a change was made in their relative position, so as in 

 the comparison of dissolved with undissolved phosphates to 

 neutralise as much as possible any variation in the soil. 

 Table IV. shows the plan for 1883, with the weight of 

 bulbs at the foot of each plot. The superphosphate is not 

 principally on the south side, and ground mineral on the north 

 side as in 1882, but half on each. The rate per acre at which 

 each plot was manured is shown in Table V. Less tricalcic 

 phosphate in the form of ground coprolites was obtained for 



Table III. 



