CHAPTER VI 



EXPERIMENTS UPON OATS 



Experiments upon Oats grown continuously upon the same Land, 

 Geescroft Field. 



Experiments upon oats on very similar lines to the trials with 

 wheat and barley were begun in 1869 in the Geescroft field, but 

 on a smaller scale, as only six plots, each one-eighth acre, were 

 set out. These experiments were, however, abandoned after 

 ten years : the Geescroft field, although it shows on physical 

 analysis a lighter texture than either Broadbalk or Hoos 

 fields, yet always lies comjjaratively wet, and appears to 

 suffer more than any other field from the continued use of 

 nitrate of soda, probably because the chalking to which the 

 other fields have been subjected has not been carried out in this 

 field. As the experiments ran into the cycle of wet seasons 

 from 1873 onwards, it became almost impossible to work the 

 land, and the experiment was abandoned after 1878. 



The average results set out in Table XXXVIII. are for the 

 first five years only of the experiment. 



Putting aside the deterioration of the texture of the land, 

 which may be taken as an accident independent of the nature 

 of the crop, there is no evidence that oats cannot be grown 

 continuously on the same land — the tenth crop on the 

 unmanured plot, for example, was larger than any other since 

 the first. The manurial requirements of the oats are also very 

 similar to those of the other cereal crops, resembling barley 

 perhaps more than wheat. The crop shows some response to 

 minerals only, but the chief increase of crop comes with 



