No. VIII.] EXPERIMENTS UPON WHEAT. Tl 



of flour (see Appendix, p. 5), and upon examination I found them to contain 

 the following proportions of gluten : — 



Water per cent. Gluten per cent. 

 No, 1. No application 163 9*4 



2. Guano and wood-ashes 16-15 9*3 



3. Artificial guano and do 16-8 9-6 



4. Sulphate of ammonia and do 164 10-5 



5. Do., do., and sulphate of soda 15-7 97 



6. Do., do., and common salt 157 9-6 



7. Do., do., and nitrate of soda lG-4 10-0 



8. Turnbull's guano, gypsum, and wood-ashes . 15-2 9-1 

 These results are not without their interest, for though they do not show any 



s^riA-mo- difference in the per-centage of gluten, yet upon the whole the result is 

 in favour of those samples to which the sulpliate of ammonia* had been ap- 

 plied. One of these, No. 4, exceeded the undressed grain by about one per 

 cent., or one-ninth of the v/hole gluten it contained. Were the amount of this 

 gluten alone therefore to determine the feeding quality of the grain, this sample 

 might be considered as considerably the most nutritious. But besides the re- 

 lative proportions of fine flour which they severally yielded, there are other im- 

 portant considerations which bear upon this question, and must influence our 

 judgment. These considerations it would be out of place to present among the 

 present observations. They will be found stated in the text of the Lectures, 

 (XIX., p. 498 et seq.) where we treat of the composition of wheat and other 

 varieties of grain — and of their respective values in the feeding of man and other 

 animals. 



F. — The Experiments upon Grass. 



I. The experiments of Mr. Alexander are not very remarkable or conclusive. 

 The meadow, which was drained moss full of timothy grass, gave naturally 1 

 ton 4 cwt. of hay, whereas the one dressing raised the produce to 1 ton 8"cwt., 

 the other to 1 ton 11 cwt., per iviperial acre. The cost is not stated. 



II. But those of Mr. Fleming are very interesting. By referring to page 17 

 of this Appendix, it will be seen that in 1841 Mr. Fleming obtained a greatly 

 increased produce of hay by the use of nitrate of soda. He informs me that 

 in making the present experiments he was desirous of again testing the efficacy 

 of this salt upon grass, on the same kind of land, and of comparing it with that 

 produced by other saline substances. lie selected also a portion of the same 

 field, on another part of which the trials upon wheat had been made in 1841 

 (see Appendix, p. 19), with the view of ascertaining if any analogy could be 

 traced or difference detected, beliaeen their action in 1841 iipon wheat, andj their 

 effect in 1842 on sown grasses — rye-grass, timothy, and red clover. Both objects 

 have been in some measure attained. I shall first present a summary of the 

 results. 



OP HAY. INCREASE. DECREASE. 



tons cwt. tons cwt. tons cwt. 



The undressed soil produced ..18 5 



Sulphate of soda, 3 cwt. ... 1 3 



Nitrate of soda, IJ cwt 2 10 12 



Sulphate of soda, 1 cwt i , « ^ - 



Nitrate of soda, i cwt S "1 



Common salt, 3 cwt 1 6 2 



Common salt, 2 cwt ^ i io n a 



Soot, 16 bushels ^11^ U 4 



Sulphate of ammonia, 1 cwt. . . 1 13 5 — — 



Guano, IJ cwt 1 18 10 



* It will be borne in mind that this is Turnbull's sa ;i^iate of ammonia, already adveited 

 to in page 61 of this Appeodix. 



