The Lois J-Veedon Plan of Growing Wheat. ' 



Thus in both instances where a liberal supply of minerals has 

 been used, the effect of which would be to use up, so to speak, 

 more of the available nitrogen within the soil, the mean per- 

 centage of nitrogen indicated was rather lower than in the cases 

 comparable with them on this point. It is freely granted, that 

 some of the individual determinations are not quite consistent 

 with the conditions here supposed ; yet, with three or four expe- 

 riments in each case, agreeing as most of them do pretty nearly, 

 it is really of interest to observe, that the mean results appear to 

 bear some relation to the known history of the plots. 



Turning now to the Lois Weedon soils, it is seen that both speci- 

 mens taken from the heavy-land field show a higher percentage of 

 nitrogen than any of the Rothamsted plots, and particularly higher 

 than the specially comparable instance at Rothamsted ; namely, 

 that where the land had been trenched and some of the subsoil 

 intermixed with the surface soil. The Lois Weedon light land 

 even, gives a slightly, but very slightly, higher percentage of 

 nitrogen than the surface-soil of the continuously unmanured 

 plot at Rothamsted. The difference, however, in favour of the 

 Lois Weedon light land, notwithstanding it had been intermixed 

 with subsoil and with marl, each containing only about half as 

 much nitrogen, is more marked when it is compared with the 

 trenched, that is, the Lois-Weedon-subsoiled plot at Rothamsted. 

 To go to figures, we find that whilst the mean of four analyses 

 gives for the Lois Weedon heavy-land stubble 0*1646 per cent, of 

 nitrogen, the mean, also of four analyses, gives for the heavy- 

 landjfaZ/ojw 0*2012 per cent. We cannot at all suppose that the 

 whole of this large difference, amounting, as it would do, to from. 

 1000 lbs. to 1500 lbs. per acre, if reckoned at 1 foot deep, is 

 due solely to the joint influence of the exhaustion of the just 

 removed crop in the one case, and to the accumulation by the 

 tilled bare fallow in the other ; though it is obvious, that the 

 effect of the accumulation by fallow would not extend uniformly 

 to the depth of 1 foot ; and consequently the assumption of a gain 

 of 1000 lbs. or 1500 lbs. of nitrogen per acre is very much 

 higher than the figures I'eally imply, even supposing the samples 

 ~were really taken to exactly corresponding depths in the two cases. 

 The more probable supposition is, however, that the sample 

 taken from the stubble did in fact represent a somewhat greater 

 depth of the staple, or more of intermixed subsoil, than that 

 taken from the fallow interval. 



Turning for a moment to the subsoils and marl, the Rotham- 

 sted unexposed subsoil indicates a rather higher percentage of 

 nitrogen than the Lois Weedon heavy-land subsoil — the former 

 giving 0*0746 and the latter 0*0652 per cent. It is seen, on the 

 •other hand, that the subsoil and marl of the Lois Weedon light- 



