INFLUENCTE OF CLIMATE, SEASON, AND SOIL. 489 



cannot be hoped for in the north of Scotland, and yet it is said that in 

 parts of Ross-shire the com and turnip crops are equal to those of the 

 most favoured districts of Britain. Is this to be regarded solely as the 

 triumph of skill and industry over the ditficulties presented by nature ? 



2°. Season. — The influence of the seasons, wet or dry, warm or cold, 

 has been observed by the farmer in all ages, and it cannot be entirely 

 overcome. The heavy crop of this year may not be reaped again on 

 the next, because an unusual cold may arrest its growth. And 

 yet good husbandry will do much even here — since the higher the farm- 

 ing the fewer the number of failures which the intelligent man will 

 have occasion to lament. 



3°. Soil. — Diversity of soil is held to be a sufficient reason for diflfer- 

 ence both in kind and in weight of crop. A poor sand is not expected to 

 give the same return as a rich clay. Yet in regard to the capabilities of 

 soils under skilful management, practical agriculture appears as yet to 

 have much to learn. Is there any method hitherto little tried by which 

 soils of known poverty may be compendiously and cheaply doctored, so 

 as to produce a greatly larger return ? Science seems to say that there is, 

 and points to a wide field of experimental research, by the diligent cul- 

 ture of which we may hope that this great result will hereafter be at- 

 tained. The principles upon which this hope rests have been explained, 

 for the most part, in. the preceding Lectures. 



4°. Kind of crop. — The amount of food, either for man or beast, 

 which a given field will produce, depends considerably upon the kind 

 of crop which is raised. Thus a crop of 30 bushels of wheat will yield 

 only about 1400 lbs. of fine flour, while a crop of 6 tons of potatoes will 

 give about 4400 lbs. of an agreeable, dry, and mealy food. Thus the 

 gross weight of food for man is in the one case three times what it is in 

 the other. So it is said, on the authority of the Board of Agriculture, 

 that a crop of clover, of tares, of rape, of potatoes, turnips, or cabbages, 

 will furnish at least thrice as much food for cattle as one of pasture grass 

 of medium quality.* 



5°. Variety of seed sown. — The variety of seed sown has also an im- 

 portant influence on the amount of produce reaped. I need not refer to 

 the well known necessity of changing the seed if the same land is to 

 continue to yield good crops — but of strange seeds of the same species 

 two varieties will often yield very unlike weights of corn, of turnips, or 

 of potatoes. I may quote as an illustration the experiments of Colonel 

 Le Couteur upon wheat. He found, on the same soil and under the 

 same treatment, that the varieties known by the name of the White 

 Downy and the Jersey Dantzic yielded respectively : 



Grain. Weight pr bush. Straw. Fine flour. Fine do. pr.ct 



White Downy - 48 bush. 62 lbs. 4557 lbs. 2402 lbs. 80| lbs. 

 Jersey D^tzic - 43^ bush. 63 lbs. 4681 lbs. 2161 lbs. 79|lbs. 

 while on a different soil and treated differently from the above, two other 

 varieties yielded — 



Grain. Weight pr bush. Straw. Fine flour. Fine do. pr.ct 

 Whittington, - - - 33 bush. 61 lbs. 7786 lbs. 1454 lbs. 72^1bg. 

 BelleVueTalavera, - 52bush. 61 lbs. 5480 lbs. 2485 lbs. f 78^ Hw. 



* Loudon's Encyclopedia of Agriculture, p. 910. 



t Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, L, p. 123. 



