XVIII TALKS ON MAXUKES. 



deep as tlie water siuks. For trees, therefore, it would seem 

 desira>)le to apply tlie superhosphate iR'fore they are planted, 

 and j)Io\v it undi-r. And the same is true of i>otash ; but 

 nitrate of soda would he b<'tter applied as a top-dressiiig every 

 year, early in the sprin;^. 



The most discouraging fact, in L;i\ves' and Uin)ert'3 experi- 

 ments, is the great loss of nitrogen. It would seem that, on an 

 average, during the last forty years, about one-half tlie ni- 

 trogen is \v:ushed out of the soil, or otherwise lost. I can not 

 but hope and believe that, at any rate in this country, there is 

 no such loss in practical agriculture. In Lawes' and Gilbert's 

 exi>eriments on wheat, this grain is grown year after j'ear, on 

 the same land. P'orty annual crops have U'eii removtHl. No 

 clover is .sown with the wheat, ami gre.it jK-iins are taken to 

 keep the land clean. The crop i.s liocd whili- growing, and the 

 weeds are pulled out l)y hand. The best whe.it se.xson during 

 the forty years. w;ls the year \H(VA. Tiie i>oorest, that of 1H70 ; 

 and il so happened, that after an .litsenceof thirty years. I was 

 at K<ithamsti'<| during this iXMir year of 1879. The first thing 

 that .struck me. in looking at the exjH'rimental wheat, was the 

 ragged ai)pearance of the crop. My own wheat crop was iM'ing 

 cut the day I left home, July 15. Several m»'n and lM)ys were 

 pulling weeds out of tlie ex|)erimental wheat, two weeks later. 

 Hatl the weeds Ix'en suffered to grow. Sir John Bennet Lawes 

 tells us, there wouM be less loss of nitrogen. The loss of ni- 

 trogen in lM(i3, \v;is about twi-nty-four pounds |M'r acre, and in 

 1H7',) tifty pounds per acre — the amount of available nitrogen, 

 applied in each year, being eighty-seven pounds jn-r acre. As I 

 said before, the wheat in 1879 had to me a ragged look. It waa 

 thin (m the ground. There were not plants enough to take up 

 and evajwrate the large amount of water which fell tluring the 

 wet season. Such a condition of things rarely occurs in this 

 country. We sow timothy with our wintt-r wheat, in the 

 autumn, and red clover in the spring. After the wheat is 

 harvested, we frequently have a heavy growth of clover in the 

 autumn. In such circum.^tances I believe there would be com- 

 paratively little loss r>f nitrogen. 



In the summer-fallow experiments, which have now lieen 

 continued for twenty-seven years, there has been a great loss of 

 nitrogen. Tlie same remarks ajiply to this case. No one ever 

 advocates summer-fallowing land every other year, and sow- 

 ing nothing but wheat. When we summer-fallow a piece of 

 land for wheat, we seed it down with grass and clover. 



