MANURES 93 



showing that manures exercised their ordinary beneficial effect 

 on such crops, though that effect was, doubtless, reduced by the 

 fact that the ground was not a suitable one for potatoes, and 

 that the particular manures applied were, for the most part, not 

 specially suited to the crops grown. 



It was found, also, that, on the average, the magnitude of the 

 effect increased with the heaviness of the dressing : thus 



Dose of dung or its equivalent 

 of artificials. 



Nil. 12 tons. 30 tons. 



Crops ..... 100 115 124 



It was ascertained that nursery stock, grown in the Ridgmont 

 soil, behaved like farm crops and not like the more mature apple 

 trees. Some thousands of crab and paradise stocks were planted 

 in the plots previously occupied by the apple trees constituting 

 the mammal experiments, and the growth of the young trees 

 during the two years after they had been worked gave the follow- 

 ing values, which, as will be seen, are very similar to those 

 obtained with farm crops 



Less than Ar , More than 

 



manure. 



manure. rriunvirc. 



Growth .... 85 ioo 114 



A liberal supply of manure to ground used for raising nursery 

 stock is the usual, and, evidently, well justified practice amongst 

 nurserymen. 



EXPERIMENTS IN POOR SOIL (Reports, IV, 84; XVI, 29) 



The next step, by way of testing the validity of the Ridgmont 

 results, was to examine the behaviour of apple trees towards 

 manure in a poor soil. The soil at Millbrook, which was chosen 

 for the purpose, is of a light, sandy, and decidedly poor character, 

 having, owing to its poorness, been abandoned for agricultural 

 purposes many years ago ; it is not, of course, land which a com- 

 mercial fruit-grower would be likely to select. An analysis of 

 the soil there will be found on p. 83. The plantation made 

 consisted of 15 plots, each containing 20 trees on paradise stock, 

 10 of Cox's Orange Pippin, and 10 of Potts' Seedling, which were 

 all two years old when planted in 1899-1900. Three of the plots, 

 distributed throughout the others, received the normal amount 

 of artificial manure. The area round the trees which was dressed, 



