404 INVESTIGATION BY CULTURE EXPERIMENTS 



legumes on Geescroft to the fact that the land was legume " sick " 

 from the effort to grow beans for more than 30 years, although some 

 good crops of clover were grown from 1882 to 1885. 



Some interesting data concerning these two abandoned fields 

 are given in Table 72. 



TABLE 72. ROTHAMSTED FIELDS, ABANDONED TO NATURE FOR 20 YEARS 



LAND 



BROADBALK FIELD 



GEESCROFT FIELD 



Character of Herbage, June, 1903 



Percentages in Soils from Broadbalk (1881) and Geescroft (1883) 



Percentages in Soils in 1904 



percentage was .108 in 1883 and .115 in 1885, the clover crops having 

 been harvested and removed during the two years. 



It seems that the practice of chalking the land, which prevailed 

 at Rothamsted a century or more ago, had not extended to Gees- 

 croft field, and without much doubt this has been the chief factor 

 in determining the character of the herbage, in part because of the 

 chemical reaction of the soil and in part because of the physical 

 difference, the Geescroft land being close-textured, poorly drained, 

 wet, and cold, while the Broadbalk soil, because of the lime present, 

 flocculates or granulates and drains well. (The adjoining regular 

 plots are tile-drained on Broadbalk.) 



Hall states that " where nitrate of soda had been used (on Gees- 



