58 



EXPERIMENTS UPON WHEAT 



weight per bushel, and the proportion of grain to straw, in 

 1879, a typical wet year, and in 1893, an exceptionally dry one ; 

 the corresponding averages for the whole fifty-one years being 

 put alongside for comparison. Table XXI. shows the 

 monthly rainfall for the same periods, during the harvest-year 

 from 1st September to the following August 31st. 



Table XXI. — Rainfall at Eothamsted {Large Gauge). Com- 

 parison of a wet and a dry harvest-year with the average 

 over 50 years (1852-3 to 1901-2). 



It will be seen that for the crop of 1879 there was a total 

 rainfall of 41 inches, of which 23*8 inches fell in the last six 

 months, as against 8-3 inches out of a total of 241 inches for 

 the corresponding periods of the harvest-year of 1892-3. 

 While the amount of grain produced is not so very different in 

 the two years, the wet year grew a far bigger crop of straw, 

 so that the grain weighed httle more than one-third of the 

 straw, whereas in the dry year grain and straw weighed about 

 the same. The weight per bushel of the grain is very much 

 higher in the dry than in the wet year, averaging 61*2 lb. 

 against 55*0 lb. In the dry years the manures have com- 

 paratively Httle effect, the crops on all the plots being brought 

 nearer to a uniform level ; in the wet year, on the contrary, the 

 difference due to manuring are very much accentuated. The 



