23 



SHORT TECHNICAL PAPERS. 



1 Hiring the year a series of short papers has been published, 

 dealing with technical problems in the light of investigations going 

 on in the field, the pot culture house and the laboratory. 



I. * On the Loss in a Stack of Unthreshed Corny E. J. 



Russell. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 1914. 

 21, 300—304. 



This paper records the history of two stacks which, instead 

 of being threshed soon after harvest, were left till the following 

 October. In both cases the loss was found to be serious — in one 

 there was a considerable loss of grain, in the other the total grain 

 did not greatly decrease, but much was damaged and came out 

 as tail corn. It is shown that a man who kept his wheat unthreshed 

 till May has in normal years a chance of obtaining 10 per cent, 

 higher price for it, but he runs the risk of incurring a far greater 

 loss. The conclusion is that under ordinary circumstances wheat 

 should be threshed out as soon after harvest as possible. 



II. "Ashes of Hedge Clippings and Trimmings as a Source 



of Potash. E. 1. RUSSELL. Journal of the Board of 

 Agriculture, 1914. 21, 694—697. 



Hedge trimmings were found to contain some 10 per cent. 

 of potash (K a O) and thus to be nearly as rich as kainit ; the 

 trimmings of a 20-acre field yielded ash equivalent to nearly 2 cwt. 

 of kainit. Since the potash occurs as the highly soluble carbonate, 

 serious loss arises when the bonfire ash is exposed to rain ; in these 

 experiments it amounted to one half. It was not found difficult, 

 however, to improvise temporary shelters. The ash mixes well 

 with super-phosphate and can be applied in this way. 



III. The Prevention of Loss from Manure Heaps in 

 Winter and Early Spring." E. J. RUSSELL and 

 E. II. RICHARDS. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 

 L914. 21, 800—807. 



Manure heaps were set up under various conditions of storage 

 indicated by the laboratory experiments, and it was found that 

 serious loss was occasioned when rain washed into the heap, even 

 though no visible drainage took place. The cause is discussed on 

 p. 8. The old view that loss is due to volatilisation of ammonia 

 cannot be regarded as complete, and it thus becomes possible to 

 explain the failure of some of the conservation methods that have 

 been suggested on this hypothesis. Rain now appears to be the 

 great enemy, causing loss even when nothing is draining from the 

 heap and, of course, more serious losses when visible leaching 

 occurs. Considerable saving was effected by sheltering the heap, 

 and the loss was reduced to very small proportions by a com- 

 bination of sheltering and compacting. 



IV. ''Third Report on the Partial Sterilisation of Soils for 



Classhouse Work." E. J. RUSSELL. Journal of the 

 Board of Agriculture, 1914. 21, 97—116. 



This paper contains an account of the large scale trials that 



