diirhuj the last Four Years. 211 



mention that^ according to an excellent prize-essay* by Mr. John 

 Hannam, the best mode of using it is drilling with autumn-sown 

 wheat at the rate of 4 or 5 cwt. to the acre, the price being about 

 7s. per cwt. 



As another instance of the local prevalence of manures, woollen 

 rags may be cited, which are the only hand-tillage familiarly 

 known to farmers in my own neighbourhood. Mr. Hannam 

 states " 20,000 tons of rags are said to be used annually by the 

 farmers of Kent, Sussex, Oxford, and Berkshire. The price is 

 about 5/. per ton. They answer extremely well for hops and 

 wheat. They are usually cut by a chopper into shrecls, and 

 applied by the hand at the rate of half a ton per acre." Six or 

 seven cwt., I believe, is a fair dressing for wheat upon light land ; 

 on heavy land rags are not used here at all. 



With regard to Nitrate of Soda, from which so much was once 

 expected, there are the most undoubted proofs from numerous 

 quarters of an enormous increase in the produce after its use ; there 

 are as undoubted instances of its utter failure : nor have we any clue 

 to the mystery. I On the same land where it gave me 8 bushels 

 of wheat one year, it gave barely 3 in the following; and having 

 tried it largely at that time on four different farms, nowhere with 

 success, I have given it up. Still there is evidently a principle 

 of fertility in it which will some day be found out, and some 

 farmers continue to use it, but in several cases it has produced 

 mildew in wheat and barley by forcing the crop beyond the 

 strength of the land. By the side of the nitrate I tried on 

 several fields the sulphate of ammonia, extracted from gas-water, 

 for the first time. It acted precisely as the nitrate of soda, 

 darkening the colour of the plant, and lengthening the straw 

 and the ear even more than the nitrate, but it certainly did not 

 pay. Again we have the principle, and we must learn to com- 

 bine it. 



I can speak with more confidence of the last new manure. 

 Guano, having used it on a small scale last year, and to the 

 extent of 5 tons in the present season. There are two circum- 

 stances in its favour beforehand : one, that it is in fact dung, 

 though of very ancient origin, still bird's dung, which is known 

 to be the most powerful of all manures — the other, that it has 

 experience in its favour, though a distant experience certainly, 



* Any member who is desh-ous of trying rape-dust will find full informa- 

 tion upon it in this prize-essay of the Wetherby Agricultural Society upon 

 Rape and other Hand-tillages, published last month at Leeds. 



t A full statement of all the recorded experiments on nitrate of soda is 

 contained in Professor Johnston's ' Chemistry and Geology applied to Agri- 

 culture,' whose book is the most complete account of agricultural chemistry 

 that we possess. 



