Lois Weedon Husbandry. 35 



spit; only 4 inches being fresh ground for the fork. For this 

 firet operation the expense is moderate ; but as the charge in- 

 creases for the stubble land and for the gradually increasing, but 

 partly pulverized, depth, I find the average payment, after a 

 series of years, when enough fresh ground has been broken and I 

 go back again for a few years to the depth of a single spit, to be 

 1/. 10s. or 1/. 145. — which latter amount includes the throwing out 

 of the stones and the weeds. 



Did Mr. Lawes adopt this method of digging ; or did he defeat 

 the rule by going beyond it? Let him speak for himself. " The 

 fallow intervals which were not sown [were] trenched 14 to 15 

 inches in Decemljer, 1851, forked in spring and again before 

 sowing ; occasionally spudded, but became foul and crusted over 

 during summer." At the very outset (that is, in preparation for 

 the second year's crop), and all through the trial, during Avhich 

 there were only three double diggings to receive the seed, the 

 trenching was 14 to 15 inches deep, a spit of the raw clay sub- 

 soil, for two out of the three diggings, being placed on the top, 

 and the half-tilled staple below. 



In thus going beyond the rule and digging too deep, Mr. 

 Lawes did indeed incur " a wasteful and injurious expense." 

 For, instead of the average payment at Lois Weedon, the trench- 

 ing at Rothamsted cost him, he says, " on the average about 

 once and a half as much as is estimated by Mr. Smith." And so 

 injurious was this wasteful expenditure in doing wrong, that, 

 in comparison, all minor errors of execution sink into insignifi- 

 cance. J'or, of all conditions of soil, there is none which the 

 wheat-plant so loathes and sickens almost to death in, as this 

 deep and hollow aggregation of unmellowed clods. 



I will not stop, then, to ask, Avhy, in opposition to the rule, 4 

 feet intervals were used by Mr. Lawes, instead of 3, to the evident 

 diminution of one-sixth of the produce; or why, being used, my 

 licence is quoted, since the licence given is wholly inapplicable. 

 Nor will I dwell on the omission of the safe roller after sowing 

 and in spring ; or, in defiance of the rule, of the sowing twice 

 out of the four times so late as October, at which time, accord- 

 ing to the provision made in the directions for exceptional 

 cases, the seed should have been sown " for a thicker crop." 

 Nor need I, I am sure, apologize to Dr. Gilbert for passing by, 

 without notice, the laborious calculations and analyses of his 

 laboratory ; for, he is too sensible not to see that, where the pre- 

 mises of an argument are proved to be unsound, no conclusions, 

 however ingenious, have the slightest interest or value. 



I am anxious to disencumber the question of everything in the 

 way of a clear understanding of the real point at issue. The 

 question volunteered by Mr. Lawes is — Can the Lois Weedon 



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