STRENGTH OF STRAW 229 



had that dull grey look we had not seen on the corn 

 crops this year, but which was so general over southern 

 England in 1910. The corn grown on the black Fen 

 soils and on the wheat plot at Rothamsted that 

 receives farmyard manure every year get just the same 

 appearance. For these reasons we have come to 

 associate it with a comparative excess of nitrogen, 

 such as will exist on land as highly farmed as this. 



The great desiderata in farming of such an intensive 

 character are cereals stout enough in the straw to 

 carry the heavy heads produced. Whatever the cause 

 of lodging, whether weakness of straw due to a too 

 rapid and dense early growth, or shading resulting in 

 fungoid attacks at the base of the stem, or mere 

 weight of grain, it is always associated with rich land, 

 particularly when the richness has been produced by 

 recent heavy manuring. Some soils grow stiffer straw 

 than others for an equal weight of grain, but on all 

 soils farmers are apt to get their corn crops spoilt as 

 soon as they raise the land to something like its 

 maximum productivity for roots and seeds. It is not 

 only the farmers who can buy town manure who reach 

 this pitch, but men who fatten bullocks as they do in 

 Norfolk or Shropshire or Northumberland, or again, 

 the men who fold their land repeatedly with sheep 

 getting a good deal of cake and corn. Various 

 would-be reformers of farming write of the possibility 

 of doubting the production of wheat by deep cultiva- 

 tion or some other formula, but they forget that at 

 present the real limiting factor which prevents the 

 average crop of wheat rising above a certain limit is 

 the strength of the straw, because not only is the 

 formation of grain very much restricted when the crop 

 is laid, but the expense of harvesting is enormously 

 increased. Of course, 1911 has been an ideal year to 



