Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



51 



1 inV YEARS' CONTINUOUS 

 COKN-GROWINCi. 



IMPURTANI EXI'KRIMEST IN liRlTISll AURICUl.TfRK. 



Mr. Marcus Woudward describes in the Conlem- 

 finrary Revirw for July an experiment made on IJlounts 

 Farm, Suwhridgeworlh, Hertfordshire. The jubilee of 

 this experiment has just been celebrated. It shows 

 ( 1 ) that corn can be grown continuously for fifty years 

 on the same soil with success ; (2) that this success 

 consists in an average of thirty-five bushels per acre; 

 and (3) in paying its way. The initiator of the experi- 

 ment Was the late Mr. Prout, a Cornish farmer, who 

 went to Canada, and for ten years farmed in Ontario. 

 He returned to England and bought Blounts Farm in 

 1861, paving £35 an acre for it. The land was in such 

 a bad slate that it was said it would starve a donkey. 

 He broke up the forty fields into ten square fields, each 

 about forty-five acres. The land was thoroughly 

 drained. 



AN ORDINARY CLAY SOIL. 



He had the soil analysed by the late Dr. Augustus 

 \'oelcker :— 



It v/as only an ordinary clay soil, though tlescribei.1 as a clay 

 and strong loam upon a subsoil of drift clay and cretaceous 

 gravel, bordering on the chalk, and known geologically as the 

 lower division of the Kocene formation. Though apparently 

 of orilinary i|ualily, and certainly like vast are.ns of similar land 

 in Great Hiiiain, the analysis proved a practically everlasting 

 fund of fcrliiilv ; lime and polash were in abumlance, materials 

 which must be applied to a light soil, but in clay need only to 

 be developed by deep and frequent stirring, so that oxidisation 

 by the atmosphere may do its work. 



.Mr. Prout decided on continuous corn-growing. The 

 whole work of the farm was simplified. There was no 

 rotation of crops, hardly any stock, but wheat, barley, 

 and oats were grown year by \ear, with only a crop of 

 clover, perhaps, once in every eight years, or a bare 

 fallow now and again, once in seven years. 



" ACTtMLI.Y ENRICHING THE LAND." 



■ .\t different periods samples of the soil were sub- 

 mitted for analysis, and always the same answer was 

 returned —no deterioration.no lack of fertility, improve- 

 ment in physical condition." The two chief substances 

 to be applied to the soil were phosphate and ammonia. 

 I he cost of this artificial manuring over twenty-five 

 years has averaged about 25s. per acre per annum. 

 The present farmer, Mr. \V. A. Prout, says :— 



Now, at lllounts we apply from 3 to 4 cwl. of mineral 

 super-phosphate and ij cwl. of nitrate of soda every year to our 

 lanil, far more than the crops need, so that by the balance left 

 we are actually enriching the land. Ami by deep and thorough 

 tillage and aeration of the soil ami subsoil we are preparing, 

 from year to year, a new abundance of all «Jie more necessary 

 mineral conslilucnls of plant loo<l. 



HEATS THE WORLD. 



So successful were the cro|)s that they were generally 

 sold by auc tion just before harvest. Mr. I'rout was the 

 only farmer on the l.ind able to lake a voluntary holiday 

 at harMsl time. Only since iSSo has an accurate reiord 

 been 111. ule of the yield per acre. This is the com 



parative result :— Blounts Farm, per acre, 35 bushels ; 

 Germany, 25 bushels ; France, 18 bushels ; United 

 States, 13* bushels ; Argentine, 13 bushels ; India, 

 12 bushels ; Australia, <» bushels ; Russia, S bushels. 

 Blounts Farm leads the world. 



CORN-GROWING I'AYS IN THE COUNTRY. 



Mr. Prout has no mercy on the superstition that 

 corn-growing will not pay in this country. His own 

 experience on an average soil goes dead against it. W e 

 have an enormous market in our own land, in a 

 population of 44,000,00c, and at present an average 

 acreage of wheat of a million and a half. " Look 

 where you will in the Fmpire you will find few places 

 to beat old England lor the right conditions for wheat- 

 growing, and no place to beat Blounts Farm with its 

 average of thirty-five bushels per acre." 



PROSPERITY ANU CONTENTMENT. 



For twenty-five years the farm has shown a sub- 

 stantial net profit of over £3 per acre. The writer 

 adds : — 



Nobody could pay a visit to Blounts Karm without fi-elingthc 

 eflect of the contented and prosperous atmosphere. The wrikr 

 looks back with abiding pleasure on many visits to the hospitable, 

 old-fashioned farmhouse, set amid pleasant gardens and orchards, 

 surrounded Ijy its prairie-like corn-lands; and on many a long 

 talk with the labourers, who are well contented with their lot 

 that has fallen on so pleasant a ground. 



THE PEAK MOMENTS OF LIFE. 



The Bliss or the Mountaineer. 



In the July Cornhill Mr. G. Winthrop Young 

 describes a new ascent by the northern face of the 

 Weisshorn. He thus describes, or suggests, the sensa- 

 tion of triumph on attaining the summit : — 



In a few moments wc stood on the icy pinnacle itself, spear- 

 poinled and frosted with ostrich-plumes of ice, the noblest of 

 mountain pyramids, thrust up by its three symmetrical and 

 colossal ridges inlo a perpetual wind. 



It was past twelve o'clock. We had been some seven hours 

 on the ascent of the face, and Hvelve hours from the bivouac, 

 with practically no halt. t)n the heights the air and the effort 

 of conccnlration act like wine on the brain, and fatigue is an 

 impossibility so long as something remains to be overcome. 

 IJut the reaction on the summit is immense. The whole thought 

 goes out in one luxurious feeling of rest. It is the most pcrlect 

 of physical sensations. The thought of past effort, the prospect 

 of more to come, even fatigue ilself— all are merged in a surge 

 of well-being, of pure self-realisation. Nerve and fibre and 

 thought are all at rest and in harmony, and the senses con- 

 sequently are exceinionally susceptible to external impressions 

 of beauty. This sensitiveness gives its peculiar value to the 

 glory of the mountain-view from a summit. lint the interval of 

 rcilisation has to be (died by some .action. Some mortals go to 

 sleep comfortably on a suininil, for all the cold. This is 

 wasteful of great momenls. Some prefer to eat, which is 

 sensible but prosaic. And some just ga/e and drowse, .and let 

 all the luxury of sensation and sight pour in uncatalogucd and 

 only afterwards remembered as a luminous cloud of one lost 

 hour's delightful existence. 



The vivid and exiiuisite mominis that make up the real 

 character of a mounlain clind) escape alike ncolleclion and 

 description. The mouiilaincer n Uirns to his hills because he 

 renundiers only that he has lorgoUen so much, lie is certain 

 of no more than that he will pass another ilay somewhere among 

 Ihe mounlain sources of unspoiled and indefinable pleasure. 



