THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



379 



two years in oats after three years' jrrass, in rather 

 poor condition. No field could be better adapted 

 or better prepared, the former manures being fully 

 exhausted, and not a weed or lump to be seen. 

 On the 30th of May the drills were formed, 27 

 inches wide ; the committee met on the 31st, it 

 being resolved that each kind of manure should 

 be applied at the rate of £6 per Irish acre ; they 

 were all carefully weighed, apportioned, put on, 

 covered in, and the seed sown, from one o'clock 

 on the 31st of May to four o'clock p.m. on the 

 1st of June, and so equally did they appear over 

 ground that on the Sth there was not a blank to 

 be seen in any of the lots. They were singled out 

 by hand to nearly 12 inches apart, and hoed the 

 first week in July. During the time of their 

 growth very little difference was perceptible ; but 

 by careful observation the lot manured with dis- 



MANURES APPLIED. 



Galway kelp 



Townsend's 



London Company's 



Peruvian guano 



Phospho-Peruvian guano 



1 1 cwt. bone dust, mixed with 4^ cwt. 

 Peruvian guano 



12 cwt. bone dust, dissolved in 4^ cwt. 

 sulplmric acid, diluted with 1G8 

 gallons of water 



6 cwt. of bone dust, 2j cwt. of acid, 

 30 tons farm-yard manure 



8 cwt. superphosphate, 30 tons farm- 

 yard manure 



60 tons farm-yard manure 



solved bones applied in a liquid state might be 

 seen to keep in advance. The ground was laid oft 

 into eight lots of one rood, containing twelve drills 

 each, and sown with two kinds of Swedish turnip — 

 Skirving's, and imperial purple-top (with the ex- 

 cetion of the first three lots, on which three kinds 

 of manure were applied). The committee again 

 met on the 22nd of November, and after examining 

 the crop (which they considered to be as equal as 

 any they had ever seen) came to the conclusion 

 that about the middle of the lots they could take 

 a fair average ; seven yards of a drill of both kinds 

 of turnip on each lot were carefully weighed. The 

 value of the artificial manures employed was in each 

 case six pounds per Irish acre, except in the cases 

 of the last but two and three in the list, where 

 the cost was three pounds per acre. The follow- 

 ing table shows the results obtained : 



The committee made the very important obser- 

 vation that, of the turnips grown by different 

 manures, some were all sound turnips, and others 

 produced a large proportion of unsound bulbs. 

 Of those grown with Townsend's manure one- 

 eighth were unsound ; of the Imperials grown by 

 the phospho-Peruvian guano, nearly one-fifth ; of 

 both those kinds grown by the mixed bone dust 

 and Peruvian guano one-eleventh were unsound. 

 And the committee also drew the attention of the 

 club to the fact, that in these trials the mixture of 

 bone dust and sulphuric acid diluted with 168 gal- 

 lons of water, produced about three tons of bulbs per 

 Irish acre more than any of the other dressings 

 employed ; which they consider the more remark- 

 able, as the bones had been only imperfectly dis- 

 solved. 



The result of another valuable series of experi- 

 ments, conducted by Mr. John Dove, of Eccles- 

 Nevvton, Kelso, tend to similar conclusions with 

 those of the Killucan Club. 



The trials of Mr. Dove were instituted with the 

 very important object of determining the compara- 

 tive value of various substances as a substitute for 

 Peruvian guano. They were carried on in the 

 season of 1858; and they extended to cereals as 



well as turnips ; but it is the results of the last- 

 named series only that I propose to extract from 

 the prize essay {Tran. High. Soc. I860, p. 213). 

 The chief manures employed were Peruvian 

 guano, which cost £12 10s. per ton; nitrate of 

 soda, and sulphate of ammonia, at £18 10s. per 

 ton; the superphosphate of hme, at £8 10s. per 

 ton ; and the rape cake, at £6 5s. per ton. In all 

 the experiments, as nearly as possible, the same 

 money value of manure was applied to each lot. 

 The following table gives the analysis of the super- 

 phosphate and dissolved bones employed : — 



Superphosphate. Diss. Bones. 



Water 18.20 13.63 



Organic matter 8.24 22.71 



Soluble phosphates .... 39.30 8.41 



Insoluble phosphates . . 1.64 25.17 



Sulphate of hme 5.79 27-13 



Sulphuric acid 19-57 — 



Alkaline salts 2.93 * 1.58 



Sand 4.33 1.32 



There were six groups of trials made by Mr. 

 Dove on turnips. The results of these I will place 

 before my readers in a tabular form* 



P P 3 



