Commercial Gardening 



others show a decrease, with the exception of the plot that had been man- 

 ured by "treble ammonium salts and minerals". The drop in yield is so 

 remarkable that it is worth while to state it in tabular form, thus: 



In Plots 2, 3, and 10 the experiments commenced in 1844; all the others 

 commenced in 1852. Plot 2 received farmyard manure, and shows an in- 

 creased yield of 11 '2 bus. per acre. Plot 3 was "unmanured", and at the 

 end of fifty-eight years shows a decline of 4'9 bus. per acre. It will be 

 noticed, however, that this decline is greatly exceeded in the chemically 

 manured Plots 10, 11, 12, and 14, which show a drop of 6'7, 8'9, 6'7, and 8'5 

 bus. respectively; while Plot 6, which received single ammonium salts and 

 minerals, only beat the " unmanured " plot by the skin of its teeth 4'1 

 against 4'9. Out of eleven plots, therefore, it appears that four plots (Nos. 

 10, 11, 12, and 14) had a much larger decrease in yield than the "unman- 

 ured" plot; while four others (Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 13) were almost as bad as 

 the plot that had received no manure at all. 



Taking the highest yield that produced by the application of farm- 

 yard manure and the treble ammonium salts and minerals the yields of 

 39'2 bus. and 38*5 bus. are by no means remarkable. They are both under 

 5 qr. to the acre, so that at 2 per quarter the return is only about 10 per 

 acre for the grain. To this must be added the sale of the straw, averaging 

 from 34 to 40 cwt. per acre, making the gross return about 12 to 14 per 

 acre. From this must be deducted the cost of labour and manures, rent, 

 rates, and taxes, so that farming and manuring on the Rothamsted principle 

 would appear to be a very precarious business. The cultivation seems to 

 be of the poorest description; in fact it can hardly be described as cultiva- 

 tion at all. "The usual practice ", says Mr. A. D. Hall in his account of the 

 experiments, " is to scuffle the land immediately after harvest, and remove 

 the weeds; the land is then ploughed 5 or 6 in. deep; the mineral and other 

 autumn-sown manures are sown and harrowed in, after which the seed is 

 drilled." One can imagine the condition of the soil 6 in. from the surface 

 after fifty years of such " cultivation ". It must be almost as hard as rock, 

 and impervious to rain, air, or roots. 



To obtain some idea as to what Wheat really could do if cultivated on 

 horticultural instead of agricultural lines, the writer carried out the fol- 

 lowing experiment at Ealing in 1910: Ordinary English Red and White 

 Wheat obtained from a flour mill 200 seeds of each were sown at a foot 

 apart each way on March 14. They germinated on April 9, and caused 

 some amusement owing to their scanty herbage and lonely appearance. By 



