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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



la Table VI 1 1 • we have purposely computed the value 

 of the turnips, clover, and straw crops at a rate which 

 brings out an acreable profit to the farmer of the same 

 per-centage amount of the capital employed as in the 

 prior computation (Table VII.) ; the result being this— 

 that after laying out £2 7s. lid. per acre yearly on 

 artificial fertilizers, the farmer could afford to sell his 

 root crop at 3s. 4d. per ton, his hay at £2 13s. 4d. per 

 ton, and his straw at 16s. 8d. ; these prices being, in 

 fact, far below the ordinary selling price of the several 

 articles. 



But since this hypothetical case assumes the use of 

 extraneous manures only, to the exclusion of those 

 manufactured at home by the conversion of roots and 

 hay into farm dung, it behoves us to suggest some con- 

 ceivable outlet for these cattle crops, through which they 

 could be converted into money at prices approximating 

 those adopted in the calculations of the table last given. 

 Well, then, pursuing for a moment longer the same 

 ideal mode of preliminary illustration, let it be supposed 

 that a given farmer, practising alternate husbandry, has 

 for his next neighbour an enterprizing grazier, who, im- 

 pressedwith the prevalent conviction that live stock is 

 destined long to maintain a steady rise in price in the 

 butcher market, and that, checked by foreign importa- 

 tions, no equal buoyancy can be predicted of corn, is 

 desirous to extend his business without enlarging his 

 farm, which, from various conceivable circumstances, 

 might be inconvenient or impracticable. Now, would 

 such a party be unwilling to relieve the corn-farmer of 

 his cattle crops and straw at the respective values set on 

 them in Table VIII. ? Would not the forecast of such 

 a man suggest to him not merely the benefits of an ex- 

 tended business in a commodity pre-eminent for its 

 rising market value, but the enriching influence on his 

 meadows and pastures which the ample top dressings of 

 dung converted by his stock from the imported proven- 

 der would enable him to apply ? How easy to him, 

 and how innocuous to the land, would be the carting 

 and laying on of this bulky and ponderous material on 

 the firm turf of his pastures, compared with the toil 

 and injurious poaching of the fallow field implicated in 

 its use in tillage farming ! On Jiis fields this manurial 

 administration would possess all the characteristics of a 

 fresh importation of fertilizing matter. Applied to the 

 arable field from whence it was produced, it possesses 

 no true contributive quality whatsoever. Of course 

 this scheme, considered in its merely literal acceptation, 

 is impracticable ; because in the corn-growing districts — 

 where only supplies of roots, hay, and straw could be 

 furnished, there no grazing neighbours exists ready 

 and willing to receive them. And now our argument 

 assuredly merges into stricly practical reasoning when 

 next we demand to know what impediment there is to 

 each tillage farmer engrafting the prosperous industry 

 of grass-land management on his holding. How can a 

 man get rich quickest by farming ? was asked of a great 

 agricultural authority in the days of the Roman em- 

 perors. "By being a good grazier," was the reply. 

 How next ? " By being a middling grazier." How 

 next ? "By being a bad grazier." All]the world con- 

 tributed its supplies of breadstufFs to the Italy of that 



day ; and her own corn husbandry was depressed by the 

 competition. But supplies of fatted animal food, whether 

 in the live ox or sheep, or in their slaughtered carcases, 

 could not be imported from afar. So it is of England 

 in the present day. Poland, the South of Russia, Egypt, 

 the back settlements of North America send us plenty of 

 corn, but not an ounce of fresh butcher-meat. In this 

 department of cosmopolitan husbandry the English far- 

 mer enjoys a virtual monopoly in his own country, and, 

 that, too, in the midst of a population rapidly increasing, 

 both in the number of mouths and in pecuniary ability 

 amongst the great mass of the working classes to gratify 

 the universal preference for liberal animal diet. 



Do we profess to have conclusively affirmed by these 

 arguments the preliminary issue placed at the head of 

 this section of our statement, viz., " Is it certain that 

 farms, generally, could be cultivated with artificial ma- 

 nures without derogation from the rate of profit ordi- 

 narily obtained from the existing modes of tillage hus- 

 bandry ?" We answer, No. But not in vain have we 

 written, if, in this commentary on the Rothamsted in- 

 vestigation into the action of artificial fertilizers in 

 rotation culture, has been raised a clear conception and 

 probability that, provided tillage farms could be kept 

 in full bearing by means of extraneous manuring alone, 

 the sources of agricultural profit would thereby be 

 largely augmented. 



And now the other question, formerly stated, presents 

 itself for argument : Could our arable fields be main- 

 tained in unflagging productiveness without the aid of 

 home-made manure, and with the aid of extraneous ma- 

 nures only 1 In point of conclusive demonstration this 

 remains to be determined, and can only be conclusively 

 determined by husbandmen themselves, through the 

 means of tentative industrial practice. Nevertheless, 

 we trust to be able to exhibit the strongest possible pre- 

 sumptive evidence in support of the proposition. 



In the first place, then, it is seen from the preceding 

 table No. V., that the use of mixed inorganic sub- 

 stances — phosphatic, carbonaceous, alkaline, and nitro- 

 genous — amounting to l,1501bs., in conjunction with 

 2,000 lbs. of rapecake, maintained the two experimental 

 plots to which they were applied in such abundant bear- 

 ing during the three courses, that in the one plot the 

 produce of barley in the third course exceeded that of 

 the first by the astonishing amount of 15 bushels per 

 acre, and in the other by the [still more wonderful in- 

 crease of all but 22 bushels. 



The next evidence which shall be adduced, to show 

 that extraneous manures are competent to maintain soils 

 in undecaying fertility, is to be found in the reports 

 of the well-known Killerton case, published in the 

 "Bath and West of England Agricultural Journal," 

 and already noticed in a prior No. of tliis series of 

 articles. It was — or rather is, for the experiment is 

 still in progress — an instance of strictly alternate hus- 

 bandry, comprising the simple rotation of roots and 

 corn. In point of quality, the land experimented on is 

 an excellent turnip and barley soil. The by-past period 

 of the trial has embraced five seasons — namely, from 

 1855 to 1859 inclusive. Till 1850, the land had been 

 out on lease, and poorly treated, and at this period was 

 put under a single course of turnips (moderately ma- 

 nured with guano), barley, clover, and wheat, all three 

 unmamired. Then commenced the experimental treat- 

 ment about to be described, and in which the! absolute 

 abnegation of farmyard dung has been persevered in, 

 conjointly with the non-consumption of any part of the 

 produce by live stock on the spot, and with the use of 

 artificial manures only. In the five left-hand columns 

 of the subjoined table, the yearly quantities of manure 

 applied are stated ; in the right-hand one, the average 

 annual produce is particularized. 



