74 



EXPERIMENTS UPON BKANS. 



[Appendix J 



beans even when already in flower. This is another of those new and practical- 

 ly valuable obsei"vations which, year by year, are sure to present themselves to 

 our observing experimenters as their inductive researches are continued, 



II. I am happy in being able to introduce here, though it reached me too late for 

 insertion among the other tables, the following digest of results upon beans, ob- 

 tained upon Lord Blantyre's farm at Lennox Love. The object of them was 

 to SLScerlain t/ie relative ejl'ect of certain saline manures, and of rape-dust, and 

 guano, upon beans, after a crop of oats. 



Experiments upon Beans, after a crop of Oats. The qiiantity of land in each 

 plot was one-eighth of an imperial acre. Seeds sown 25th February ; manures 

 applied 13th May; crop cut 8th August; stacked 1st September, 1842; and 

 thrashed 6th February, 1843. 



Remarks. — The soil of Fordhill. on which they srew, is light and of inferior quality — the 

 subsoil is of indurated clay, intersperised with boulders and small stones, and occasionally 

 beds of gravel. The field was drained every furrow previous to its being broken up from 

 old lea in the winter of 1840— ploughed deep and subsoilcd in the autumn of 1841, and ma- 

 nured with farm-yard dung in (he drill before sowing the beans in the spring of 1842. Owing 

 to the dryness of the season, the beans were rather short in the straw; (he specific manures 

 were applied after the plants had attained some inches in height. The sulphate of soda (rhy , 

 not in crys/als) blackened and destroyed the under leaves, wherever it came in contact with 

 them, but fresh shoots soon appeared, and it did not seem permanently to injure or retard the 

 growth of the plants. They did not, after the application, shew any marked change of colour ; 

 and at no period did they seem to differ much from tlie rest of the field. A few peas were 

 sown among the beans : and in dressing the grain, an attempt, partially successful, was made 

 to separate them— each experiment underwent the same process in the dres&ing. Grain 

 column 1st represents the produce in bean.s — grain column 2nd represents that in peas. 

 The separation, however, not being completely effected, there were left peas among the beans, 

 and some of the smaller and inferior beans among the peas. I thought a distinction of this 

 kind worth making in the Tables, as I observed that some of the lots contained much more 

 peas than others, and conceived that the relative value of the manure, as applied to either, 

 might thereby in soi.ie measure be shown, as well as tlieir effects on the beans alone more 

 truly exhibited. The gross weights were taken, as those of the other experiments, at the 

 town of Haddington's weighing-machine, before thrashing — the detailed weights and mea- 

 surements by myself. Wm. Goodlet. 



The produce of the undressed part amounted in the above experiment to 29i 

 bushels, and it is remarkable — 



1°. That the soot alone caused a sensi«rle diminution of the gross produce, 

 and alone did not lessen the proportion of { ^as. 



2'^. Although the season was so dry the s.i.phate of soda gave a larger increase 

 than was obtained by the addition of twice .ts own weight of guano, 



3°. That an admixture of half its weight ^f nitrate with the sulphate of soda 



