S46 



F A K iVl E R S' REGISTER 



[No. 



manured with bones. In that j^ear they 'were 

 largely ^o manured. The seeds f-own with barley 

 in 1826 havintj been burnt up in that dry summer, 

 in 1828 the land in both these fieldp was again 

 broken up. In 1829 it was again ftillowed with 

 turnips and manured with bones. In 1833, both 

 these fields were again sown with turnips, parts 

 of each of which were manured with bones, 

 and the remaintier witli (arm-yard dung. 



"In 1834, when the corn was out, it was ftuiid 

 that the seeds had failed in each of these fields 

 where the bones had been applied ; and thai they 

 were very good where they had been manured 

 with dung. In one of these fields the feiilure ex- 

 actly followed the line of the difference of the ma- 

 nures, vviih two exceptions, that the seeds did not 

 quite fail in two spots where formerly there had 

 been dung heaps. In the other field' the failure 

 did not so exactly follow the line of demarcation, 

 but the exceptions were very few. Generally 

 speakinfr, the manured land is better than the 

 boned land, but the difference of quality is not 

 great, the crop of barley on the manured land 

 had been at the rate of five quarters per acre, on 

 the other four. 



"Immediately after harvest, fresh seeds were 

 isown on the boned land. They came up very 

 thick, but in six weeks died and disappeared. 

 During the winter the land was asrain fallowed, 

 and fresh seeds were again sown in the sprintr of 

 183o. They cannot be said to have failed, "but 

 they were a very inferior crop; and, notwithstand- 

 ing a manuring of farm-yard dung applied as a 

 top-uressingthe following spring, thev have not yet 

 recovered a parity with the rest of the fields. In this 

 case it seems impossible to attribute the failure of 

 these seeds, where they have fiiiled, to any other 

 cause than the bones," which had certainly been 

 applied with unusual abundance; and it is the 

 more surprising that such a cause should have 

 produced such an effiect, because, in the early pe- 

 riods of the use of that manure, it appeared to be 

 in no respects more advantageous than in its ten- 

 dency to encourage the growth of the clovers. 

 Of this tendency, the most remarkable instances 

 have been repeatedly seen on very poor land, and 

 none more so than one which occurred on a very 

 poor piece of land prepared for a plantation by a 

 crop of turnips, manured with forty bushels per 

 acre, on which, between the trees, a great deal of 

 clover has spontaneously sprung up. Previously 

 to this lard havinfr been broke up for turnips, 

 scarcely a plant of clover was to be seen. Now 

 the fields on which the seeds have failed had (as 

 above stated) received, much more frequently than 

 usual, complete dressings of bones. 



" Combining the great advantages of bones on 

 the first application of them with this failure, it 

 eeems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that as the 

 bones, while they are new to the land, have pro- 

 duced the most beneficial efiecls, and as this fail- 

 ure has taken place where their application has 

 been most frequently repeated, the success is in a 

 great measyre owing to the novelty, and the fail- 

 ure to the repetition of their application. 



" If the preceding statement required any con- 

 firmation, it has received it in 1837. In this 3'ear, 

 a field which had been turnips in 1836, had been 

 laid down to grass. The norlh side of this field 

 19 very inferior sand-land; and as, till lately, it 

 was supposed that such land would not pay for 



the expense of bones, they had never been ap- 

 plied to it. For the first time in 1836, bones were 

 used for the turnip fallow. The south side of this 

 field, which for many years has always been ma- 

 nured wiih bones when in fallow for turnips, was 

 divided into four divisions ; the western side wag 

 manured with farm-yard dung; that next to it 

 with bones ; the two eastern divisions were ma- 

 nured, the one with rape-dust, and the other with 

 malt-culms. After harvest, the seeds on the norlh 

 side appeared to be best; then those on the west- 

 ern side of the field; then those on the two east- 

 ern divisions, which were rather inferior ; and 

 those on that where the bones had been applied 

 were visibly the worst. The frost has been so in- 

 jurious to the seeds, that this difference between 

 the three eastern divisions is not now so marked as 

 it was before the frost; but the superiority of the 

 northern side and the western division is very ap- 

 parent. 



" This field lies nearly opposite to Scotland 

 Farm, on the other side of the road leading from 

 Ollerton to Worksop, and three miles from the 

 latter." 



In this statement the soil is described as "savd- 

 land :" the rotation followed on it a four-shift, viz. 

 turnip-fallow, barley, grass, and a white crop ; 

 and the quantify of bone-dust applied forty bu- 

 shels per acre. The remarks we would venture 

 to make on this statement are, that a rotation of 

 four is not adapted to any " sand-land" with even 

 an unlimited command of manure; for that course 

 keeps litrht land too much under the plough, 

 makes it too pulverulent, and therebj^ endangers 

 its texture with deafness. Such land should al- 

 ways be pastured at least two years, and better 

 still for three, in order that it may be consolidated 

 into a firm condition by time and rain, and the 

 tread of animals. It is not slated whether the 

 turnips were wholly carried ofl' the ground, or 

 partly eaten on the ground by sheep. We have, 

 universally in Scotland, a notion that the half, at 

 least, of the turnips raised by means of bone-dust 

 ouirht to be eaten off by sheep; for, without such 

 assistance from other manure, we conceive the 

 bone-dust would have too much to do of itself in 

 supporting all the crops during the rotation. This 

 being the notion in Scotland, the practice originat- 

 ing from it is, that never more than sixteen bu- 

 shels generally, though some farmers apply 20 

 bushels, is applied to the imperial acre. We 

 have also a notion in Scotland that bone-dust has 

 a caustic quality, and that considerably more 

 than sixteen bushels to the acre on light soils, 

 would do more harm than good. We have our- 

 selves experimentally tried the effects of differ- 

 ent quantities of bone-dust in raising turnips on 

 lisht gravelly soil from twelve to twenty-five bu- 

 shels per imperial acre, and found the crop im- 

 proved decidedly to sixteen bushels, but not in the 

 least beyond that quantity. So far, therefore, as 

 the turnip crop was concerned, any quantitv above 

 the sixteen bushels was thrown away. The cir- 

 cumstance, as expressed in the statement, that 

 farm-yard manure yielded more barley on the 

 "sand-land" than bone-manure, afier the land 

 had been previously boned, shows analogically 

 the fertilizing effects of feeding sheep at turnipa 

 on land that had been manured with bones. Un- 

 til, therefore, we learn that turnips had been 

 raised on the "sand-land" with only sixteen bu-. 



