156 AGRICULTURE 



made to phosphatic dressings. This applies 

 to lucern, sainfoin, all the clovers, and 

 markedly so to peas a crop more fre- 

 quently grown on light soils than most other 

 leguminous crops. Vetches and beans, on 

 the other hand, being more associated with 

 cultivation on heavy soil, do not usually 

 respond, under ordinary practice, in any 

 very marked degree to dressings of potash ; 

 but if the soil is light, or if for any other 

 reason it is deficient in this ingredient of 

 plant food, these crops will show the effects 

 of its use as much as any. 



It is perhaps in connection with the 

 manuring of permanent grass land that one 

 hears most discussion as to the use or other- 

 wise of potash. On the meadow land at 

 Rothamsted it has been found, as the average 

 result of more than fifty years' work, that 

 the withholding of potash from a mixed 

 artificial dressing has resulted in a very 

 marked reduction in the yield of hay, with a 

 more than proportionate deterioration in 

 its quality. Potash was found to encourage 

 the growth of the better grasses, and notably 

 the growth of clovers and other leguminous 

 plants ; and what between quantity and 

 quality there is no doubt that the use of potash 

 on such land as that at Rothamsted, and 



