75 



In selected cases, illustrating the influence of season, manures, 

 exhaustion, etc., complete ash analyses have been made, numbering in 

 all more than 700. Also in selected cases, illustrating the inlluence of 

 season and manuring, (juantities of the experimentally grown wheat 

 grain have been sent to the mill, and the proportion and comi)08ition 

 of the diflercnt mill products determined. In the sugar beet, mangel- 

 wurzel, and potatoes the sugar in the Juice has in many cases been 

 determined by polariscopo, and frequently by copper .also. 



" In the case of the experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent 

 grass land, besides the samples taken for the determination of the 

 chemical composition (dry matter, ash, nitrogen, woody tiber, fatty 

 matter, and composition of ash), carefully' averaged samples have fre- 

 (piently been taken for the determination of the botanical composition, 

 I n this way, on four occasions, at intervals of live years, viz, in 1802, 180*7. 

 1872, and 1877, a sample of the i)roduce of each plat was taken and 

 submitted to careful botanical separation, and the pcrcentfige by weight 

 of each species in the mixed herbage determined. Partial separations, 

 in the case of samples from selected plats (freiiuently of both first and 

 second crops), have also been made in many other years." 



More than 1,000 samides have been taken from the soils of the 

 experiment plats at depths of from 9 to more than 100 inches. These 

 have been submitted to a partial mechanical sei)aration, and in a large 

 number of cases the loss on drying at difterent temperatures and on 

 ignition has been determined. 



"In most the nitrogen determinable by burning with soda lime has 

 been estimated. In many the carbon, and in many the nitrogen as 

 nitric acid, and the chlorine have been determined. Some experi- 

 ments have also been made on the comparative absorptive capacity 

 (for water and ammonia) of dillerent soils .and subsoils. The system- 

 atic investigation of the amount and the condition of the nitrogen, and 

 of some of the more important mineral constituents of the soils of the 

 ditferent plats, and from ditferent depths, is in progress or contem- 

 plated." 



Almost from the commencement of the experimental work at Koth- 

 amsted the rainfall has been measured by means of gauges. 



" From time to time the nitrogen, as ammonia and as nitric acid, has 

 been determined in the rain waters. The chlorine and the sulphuric 

 acid have also been determined in a considerable series of samples." 



The (piantity and composition of the water percolating through soil 

 at dej)ths of 20, 40, and 60 inches, has been determined with the aid of 

 three " drain gauges" constructed for the purpose. The drainage 

 waters from the difterently manured i)lat8 of the permanent experi- 

 mental wheat fields are frequently analyzed. 



" Professor Franklaud has determined the nitrogen, as ammonia, as 

 nitric acid, and as organic nitrogen, and also some other constituents, 

 in many samples both of the rain and of the various drainage waters 



