Field Experiments of the Past Year by the Chemical Branch. 301 



fertilization of liis worn out soils. You of the more favoured South 

 will not envy him the one little good fortune he has struck. It is 

 now a recognised fact that soils of arid areas are, as a rule, fertile 

 soils. You will know the constant chemical changes going on in our 

 soils, and how the iusoluljle matter that the plant roots ai'e unable 

 to make use of is gradually being changed into soluble forms that 

 can serve as plant food. Year after year the accumulation of these 

 soluble salts is taking place in the dry northern areas, for tlie rains 

 iire not sufficiently heavy to wash them out. In humid climates, 

 however, the leaching action of heavy rains is responsible for the loss 

 of large quantities of these soluble forms of plant food. It is 

 reasonable, then, to think that quantities of manure, proving sufficient 

 in dry areas, should be quite inadequate under humid conditions. 

 You have also to consider the very much larger crops obtained in the 

 South than in the North, and you have to remember, as I think I 

 shall show you, tliat it is not a ((uestion of replacing one deficiency in 

 the soil, but in cases two, three and four. Now, under, such con- 

 ditions, it is no use talking of pounds of manure to the acre as we do 

 in the North. It is a (juestion, I fear, of hundredweights, and not 

 pounds. It will take tlie southern farmer some little time to grip 

 this fact, perhaps, and the gospel of manuring, will not receive the 

 immediate popularity it did in the North. But it will finally become 

 popular there also, for the question, after all, is not the cost of 

 manuring, but the profits above and beyond that cost. The cost will 

 undoubtedly be heavier, but the increased returns will be also 

 ■correspondingly larger. And if by manuring we can convert those 

 large areas in the South, which may be classed as of second quality, 

 into lauds approaching, or perhaps equalling in productive power, 

 the first-class soils; and if those extensive stretches regarded as 

 third class may Ije also transformed into profitable holdings, then 

 manuring, in S])ite of its larger cost, will be credited with a trans- 

 formation in the Agriculture of the South as far-reaching and 

 important as the changes which have followed its introduction in the 

 North. These introductory remarks, I fear, have been a little long, 

 but were necessary to pave the way for a clear understanding of what 



is to follOAV. 



Hay Crops in Southern and Western Districts. 



The returns given in table A, page :J02, represent the average of 30 

 fields. Before inquiring into what manures have been used, and what 

 manures have acted, a glance as to how these manures have operated 

 will reveal some very significant results. We find these results in the 

 figures of the general average. You will see that plots 2, 5, 8, 11 and 

 14 are unmanured plots. And you will notice that the yields of the 

 unmanured plots are almost identical. In plot 2 it is 1*67 tons ; 

 plot 5, 1-58; plot 8, 1-67; plot 11, 1-69; and plot 14, 1-69 tons. 

 Taking the average of these 150 plots, we get I'QC) tons as the 

 average yield of the unmanured ground of the 30 fields. On plot 15, 

 however, the manured plot showing the maximum yield, we find as 

 an average of the 30 fields, a yield of 3-37 tons, or slightly more than 

 double the returns obtained, as an average, from the unmanured 



