METHODS OF CULTIVATION. 227 



very unsatisfactory description, being on the London clay ; 

 but for this particular cultivation it certainly was not ill 

 adapted, as clays contain larger proportions of potash, and 

 absorb and retain both ammonia and moisture to a greater 

 degree all of which are essential to the growth of the 

 ryegrass than soils of a lighter class. 



The great success that followed this practice, and the 

 general admission of the beneficial action of liquid ma- 

 nures on growing crops intended for forage purposes, sooii 

 led other cultivators to follow and improve upon it ; and 

 in a few years we find it forming the keystone of the 

 system of management on more than one farm, while on 

 others, where it was carried out, it added largely to their 

 productive resources. The conditions of Mr. Dickenson's 

 farming were somewhat exceptional: he kept a great 

 number of carriage- horses, who required a large amount 

 of green food, and whose liquid secretions furnished the 

 manure, which was carted out and distributed liberally 

 on his forage crops. His followers, however, were practi- 

 cal men, who took the matter up purely as a question of 

 productive farming; and being satisfied as to the prin- 

 ciple, made their arrangements for carrying it out by 

 means of fixed pipes and distributing apparatus, instead of 

 the more costly and less efficient mode of horse labour. 

 The different farms where this practice has been in opera- 

 tion are so well known, and their arrangements and 

 details of management have been before the public, and 

 so often discussed, both at agricultural meetings and 

 through the medium of the press, that we need say but 

 little about them here: those to whom the subject com- 

 mends itself we would refer to the valuable practical 

 paper " On the Cultivation of Italian Ryegrass" read by 

 Mr. J. C. Morton at a meeting of the Central Farmers' Club, 

 in March, 1855, 1 in which a description and full details 



J Condensed report given in Agri. Gaz. for 1855, p. 158. 



