EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS — TURNIP CROP 1882. 359 



with the general scope of the inquiry. Each plot was divided 

 into two parts, — to the one part the manures were applied in the 

 middle of January, and to the other part the same manures were 

 applied in the middle of May, making a difference of five 

 months in the time of application. The only substances which 

 were not so applied were the nitrate of soda and the sulphate of 

 ammonia. These substances are so rapid in their action that it 

 was thought prudent, even for experimental purposes, to postpone 

 their application till the crop was there to receive them ; 

 accordingly they were applied to the young ]jlants about a 

 month after sowing. It may be well to remark here that 

 this division of the stations into an early and a late manured 

 half enormously increased the labour in carrying out the 

 experiments, and called for greatly increased care and watch- 

 fulness on the part of the farm stewards who bad the super- 

 intendence of the work. The management of an experimental 

 station divided into about 80 plots of an eighth of an acre 

 each is a laborious work, and is especially irksome when it is 

 added on to the ordinary work of a considerable farm. The 

 labour in connection with the turnip crop of 1882 w^as in- 

 creased on account of the wetness of the winter, which 

 prevented the crop from being carted from the field at the 

 time of lifting. The crop of each plot had to be stored upon 

 its own ground, and it was so late before it could be carried in 

 and weighed that the results were not forward in time for pub- 

 lication in the last volume of the Transactions. 



Even if the results had been obtained it would not have been 

 prudent to publish them, for the weight per acre of a turnip crop 

 gives often a very fallacious idea of the amount of actual food 

 per acre contained in it. This may be said of all field crops, but 

 of none more truly than of turnips, which at best contain only 

 about 12 per cent, of solid matter, and may contain little more 

 than half that quantity. Before any idea of the relative value of 

 turnip crops can be obtained, they must first be analysed, not 

 only to know what proportion of the entire crop is solid matter, 

 but to know how much of that solid matter is of a nutritive 

 kind. This has been done for the crops at the Society's stations 

 for 1882, and the work has taken fifteen months to perform. 

 As the value of an analysis of a crop of roots depends much upon 

 the scale on which it is carried out and the method of sampling, 

 a few words on that subject will l)e necessary before laying the 

 details before the reader. The selection of the roots from the 

 field was performed by five persons, who were stationed at 

 regular intervals along the outside drill of each half-})lot, thus 

 dividing the half-])lot into five equiil sections. They walked 

 across the plot, and each selected eight turnii)S which in his 

 opinion most fairly represented the average character of the 



