32 Lois Weedon Husbandry. 



tall bright straw amounted to the remarkable weight of two tons 

 to the (half) acre. 



The sixth unmanured crop on the light gravel land, which has 

 twice yielded 5 quarters to the (half) acre, gave last year (with 

 its two rows instead of three, — a diminution of rows causing the 

 comparative loss of one-sixth of the produce) 30 bushels of 

 superior Avheat, with bright clean straw. And there, too, four 

 years ago, a small strip, manured for roots and unexhausted, was 

 added to the original piece ; the fresh strip always tending to 

 over-luxuriance and mildew, which tendency, I conceive, it will 

 never lose till the surplus nitrogen within the soil be reduced. 



Such are the leading points of this plan of growing wheat; 

 and I now come to the trial of it at Rothamsted. 



At Lois Weedon the success of the plan has been signal, un- 

 failing, and undisputed. " And yet," says Mr. Lawes, " it is 

 somewhat singular that those who have endeavoured to follow 

 the directions given, on other soils, have generally been unsuc- 

 cessful." 



I am perfectly aware of these reported failures ; but no one 

 hitherto has come forward by name and published the details of 

 his unsuccessful efforts. So that there has been nothing tangible, 

 — no case that could in reality be met. Therefore it is that I am 

 so indebted to Mr. Lawes for his paper. Lie steps boldly forth 

 and says, " I have tried the plan, and it has signally failed. I 

 have tried it for four successive years, and each year the produce 

 has been miserably poor and blighted. Here, in the paper I lay 

 before the public, is Mr. Smith's plan as I have carried it out ; 

 and here I think it right, in the Journal of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society of England, to show to the agricultural world, that 

 the plan has little chance of succeeding on any soil but that at 

 Lois Weedon. For it so happens that the Rothamsted soil is 

 peculiarly suited to test the fact : it has a staple of loam, a stiff 

 clay subsoil, with chalk at a great depth below ; so that it may 

 be well taken as a type of all other wheat land ; and as it did 

 not answer here, it cannot be expected — with the single exception 

 I have admitted — to answer anywhere else." 



Such, in effect, is the point aimed at by Mr. Lawes in this 

 report of his experiment ; and my reply to it shall be brief and 

 out-spoken. 



If Mr. Lawes had really carried out the plan, and found by 

 unmistakeable signs that, notwithstanding a proved abundance of 

 mineral food, his wheat-crops failed year after year ior Avant of 

 available nitrogen, I could have understood and valued tlie well- 

 intentioned experiment. Or, if he had erred in the execution of 



