780 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



The Northern Results Summarized. 

 The pronounced effect of pliosphatic fei'tilizers is only confirmatory 

 of the results of former experiments, but the whole of the present 

 returns tend to show a considerably more marked effect from these 

 fertilizers, under the ample moisture supply of last year, than under 

 the prevailing drier conditions of preceding seasons. The limits, 

 however, of an effective application, with an ample moisture supply, 

 are lower in these returns than expected, and appear to be somewhat 

 below, rather than above, 80 lbs. of superphosphate to the acre. The 

 natural fertility of the soils under review, judging from the returns 

 of the unmanured plots, may however be considered a high one, and 

 on soils below this standard larger quantities would probably prove 

 effective. The wet season appears to have specially favoured the 

 effective action of Thomas phosphate. There appears further in the 

 returns, evidence for concluding that Northern soils, which hitherto 

 with few exceptioDS have remained passive to nitrogenous appli- 

 cations, may show, under an ample moisture supply, a response to 

 such treatment, and indications are also present that continuous grain 

 cropping, year after year, with phosphatic fertilizers may, after some 

 years, lead to soil conditions in which the application of a nitrogenous 

 manure, in addition to a phosphatic, may also become a necessity. It 

 is with the data at present to hand a little early perhaps to draw such 

 conclusions, but the easy possibility of such an occurrence demands 

 attention. Such a contingency suggests -the advisableness, where the 

 three year course of crop, grass and bare fallow is not the practice, of 

 occasionally intervening some leguminous winter crop, such as peas, 

 the cost of which might be profitably covered by feeding off in 

 spring. Such a practice has, in instances, been successfully carried 

 out in the North. The returns appear also to show that the use of 

 small quantities of gypsum mixed with the superphosphate may prove 

 of some slight value on certain soils of the North, deficient possibly 

 in lime or of a mechanical condition tending to set the soil and inter- 

 fere with the development of the plant in its earlier stages of growth. 

 The few tests carried out on different methods of applying manures 

 favor largely the application with the drill, equal quantities of super- 

 phosphate applied broadcast as a top dressing after sowing the grain, 

 as well as ploughing in prior to sowing, showing considerably smaller 

 yields than those obtained from the applications made with the drill. 



