288 TALKS ON MANURES. 



There is one thing in relation to my mangels of 1876 which has 

 escaped the Deacon. The whole piece was manured and well pre- 

 pared, and clibbled in with mangels, the rows being 2 feet apart, 

 and the seed dropped 15 inches apart in the rows. Owing to poor 

 seed, the mangels failed on about three acres, and we plowed up 

 the land and drilled in corn for fodder, in rows 2| feet apart, and 

 at the rate of over three bushels of seed per acre. We had a 'great 

 crop of corn-fodder. 



The next year, as I said before, the whole piece was planted 

 with potatoes, and if it was true that mangels are an " enriching 

 crop," while corn is an "exhausting" crop, we ought to have had 

 much better potatoes after the mangels than after corn. This was 

 certainly not the case ; if there was any difference, it was in favor 

 of the corn. But I do not place any confidence in an experiment 

 of this kind, where the crops were not weighed and the results 

 carefully ascertained. 



Mr. Lawes has made some most thorough experiments with dif- 

 ferent manures on sugar-beets, and in 1876 he commenced a series 

 of experiments with mangel-wurzel. 



The land is a rather stiff clay loam, similar to that on which the 

 wheat and barley experiments were made. It is better suited to 

 the growth of beets than of turnips. 



"Why so," asked the Deacon, "I thought that black, bottom 

 land was best for mangels." 



"Not so, Deacon," said I, "we can, it is true, grow large crops 

 of mangels on well-drained and well-manured swampy or bottom 

 land, but the best soil for mangels, especially in regard to quality, 

 is a good, stiff, well-worked, and well-manured loam." 



"And yet," said the Deacon, "you had a better crop last year 

 on the lower and blacker portions of the field than on the heavy, 

 clayey land." 



In one sense, this is true. We had dry weather in the spring, 

 and the mangel seed on the dry, clayey land did not come up us 

 well as on the cooler and moister bottom-land. We had more 

 plants to the acre, but the roots on the clayey land, when they 

 once got fair hold of the soil and the manure, grew larger and bet- 

 ter than on the lighter and moister land. The great point is to get 

 this heavy land into a fine, mellow condition. 



But to Mr. Lawes' experiments. They are remarkably interest- 

 ing and instructive. But it is not necessary to go into all the de- 

 tails. Suffice it to say that the experiments seem to prove, very 

 conclusively, that beets require a liberal supply of available nitro- 



