1274 CEREALS AND PUI.SE CROPS 



the soil is very fertile owing to recent manuring of immediately preceding 

 crops intended to enhance its fertility. Sowing should not be done 

 closely and broadcast, but rather in rows or ridges, which increases 

 the light available for the wheat, and also allows of proper weeding and super- 

 ficial tillage at the beginning of spring, so that between the rows the soil 

 remains perfectly clean and under favourable conditions of aeration. The 

 very old practice of topping wheat when too high, or feeding it to sheep 

 for a short space of time, is a method by which the lower part of the culms 

 may be made to benefit by the reinvigorating and wholesome eifect of sun- 

 Hght. 



With regard to the destruction of weeds in good time, in consideration 

 of the results obtained in France, England and Scotland by spraying 

 the wheat (with sulphate of copper, or, according to M. Rabat^, with 

 dilute sulphuric acid) as a direct method of weed prevention, and on 

 the basis of the experiments carried out by himself in the experimental field 

 of Suessola with human urine to which sulphuric acid had been added, used as 

 a nitrogenous manure, the writer proposes to modify the RabatiS method of 

 spraying wheat with dilute sulphuric acid, and to combine the treatment 

 for weed control and the destruction of parasitic fungi with the spring ni- 

 trogenous manuring. This treatment would be carried out with urine 

 acidified by sulphuric acid, which should be put down as a cover on the wheat, 

 in the spring, and repeated several times if possible, by means of sprayers, 

 as is at present done with sulphate of copper and the ordinary dilute solu- 

 tion of sulphuric acid. 



The only economic method of conserving urine is based on mineral salts. 

 The writer has always stressed the importance of agricultural utilisation 

 of human and animal urine, pointing out that urine contains a quantity of 

 nitrogen five times greater (4.40 kg. as against 0.80 kg.) than that existing 

 in solid excrement. He adds that at the present time almost the whole 

 of this urine is wasted, and that in Italy the annual loss may be estimated 

 at 300 million francs. 



Passing on to deal with his experiments in manuring with human urine 

 plus sulphuric acid, which were carried out at Suessola, the writer states 

 that this manure was applied with success during the 18 years of continuous 

 cereal growing, two grain crops being taken each year, maize following 

 wheat in the same year. In the course of the successive years, variable quanti- 

 ties of acidified urine were employed, the most usual proportions being 

 320,249,223 and 178 gallons per acre. The acid solution was in some j^ears 

 applied in the autumn before the wheat was sown, but in most instances 

 it was spread in the spring. The leaves of the wheat were slightly burnt 

 by the drops of caustic liquid, but the wheat rapidly recovered and gave a 

 fine yield. 



Taking into account the experiments conducted of late years on the 

 beneficial action of sulphur, particularly in respect to organic soils and differ- 

 ent cereal crojjs on the one hand, and the fungicidal action of this 

 product on the other hand, the writer, in case of vigorous growth of fungal 

 parasites on wheat during the ripening period, advises the sulphuring of 



