ANNUAL REPORT 



For the Year 1908. 



The weather of 1908 presented many peculiarities, but was on 

 the whole favourable to vegetation. The autumn and early winter 

 of 1907 were exceptionally open and mild, both rainfall and mean 

 temperature being considerably above the average for the last quarter 

 of the year ; on this account and because of the sunless character of 

 the previous season, most perennial plants were in a soft and un- 

 ripened state at the end of the year. In early January severe frosts 

 came (there were two short spells when the grass temperature fell to 

 ii° F.), accompanied by drying winds and no snow, whereupon great 

 destruction was wrought, even among hardy plants. 



The Wheat in Broadbalk, sown on November 6th and 7th, 1907, 

 lost plant considerably at this stage and continued to show very 

 indifferent promise up to May. It recovered very rapidly during 

 the fine hot weather of May and June, and eventually yielded more 

 than an average crop of excellent quality, the wheat from several of 

 the plots weighing over 641b., that from one plot even reaching 6>lb. 

 per bushel. The unmanured plot (65th successive crop of wheat, no 

 manure since 1838) yielded I2'4 bushels of wheat (weighing 63 - 5lb. 

 per bushel) and 77 cwt ( of straw. 



The Barley was sown on Hoos Field (57th crop on the same 

 plots) on April 2nd ; the land was in good tilth and the seed germ- 

 inated well, but the weather about that time was of the worst 

 description ; night frosts were recorded on 19 occasions during April, 

 the reading on the grass being as low as 22 on the 27th. The 

 young plant never seemed to grow away properly, and eventually a 

 very low yield of poor quality was obtained. 



The crops on the permanent grass plots (53rd year of the experi- 

 ment) were rather above the average, the proportion of leguminous 

 plants in the herbage was also rather above the average. It is notice- 

 able that Plot 14, which receives the high dressing of 55olb. per acre 

 of nitrate of soda, is beginning to be over-run by Latkyrus Ntitrusis, 

 though in earlier separations it has never shown more than a few pet 

 cent, of leguminous plants. Through the long continued use of 

 nitrate of soda the soil of this plot has become so alkaline that when 

 extracted with water it yielded free alkali equivalent to 1751b. per 

 acreof sodium carbonate in the soil down to a depth of 3 feet. 



