1S4*.] 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



141 



k nf the ears took the corns next to the top, and sowed 

 Zm in another pot, and so on till I had 12 pots each 

 ^U«n\ the corns from corresponding parts of the 12 

 - Mr object was to see whether or not the corns 

 E£ .11 Parts of the car were alike valuable for seed, and 

 •r^r what corns were the most valuable. As far as my 

 fxpenment ■ «nt, the corns taken from the middle of the 

 ,Jwere decidedly the best.— D. C. 



Societies. 



ROYAL AGRICULTURALSOCIETY of ENGLAND. 

 A Weekly Council was held at the Society's house, 

 Wednesday last, the 28th. Present : W. Miles, Esq., 



T. Yilliera Shelley, Esq 



"stretton William R.,Darfy Park, Crickhovvell, Brecknockshire. 

 Whitby 'm. P-, Ncwlaiuls, Lymington, Hampshire. 

 Mar-h, Jnhn, Lvclgate Hall, near Sheffield. 



lletpie, Robert, 33, York Place, Portmau-square. 



The names of 10 candidates for election at the next 

 meeting were then read. 



Cottage Tracts. — The Secretary reported the 

 distribution of 15,000 copies during the past two 

 years, of the articles on Cottage Gardening, by Mr. 

 Main ; and on Cottage Economy and Cookery, by Mr. 

 Burke reprinted from the Journal in the form of distinct 

 Tracts and sold to members at the prime cost of one 

 penny each. The Council ordered that the question of a 

 further reprint of 6000 impressions of these Tracts should 

 be referred to the monthly meeting on the 6th of March. 



Drainage.— Mr. J. Clarke, of Long Sutton, Lin- 

 colnshire, informed the Council that little or nothing 

 hliiDg been yet done to improve the drainage of the low- 

 land district, near Wisbeach, in which he resided, it had 

 been his wish to draw public attention to the subject, and 

 be had according drawn up a work, of which he then 

 presented a copy to the Council, on "Thorough Draining 

 in Principle and Practice," with its advantages and sim- 

 plicity as applied to a dead level, addressed to the 

 owners and occupiers of the soil in the parts of Holland, 

 in the county of Lincoln, and the great level of the Fens, 

 for which the Council ordered their best thanks to be 

 given to Mr. Clarke. Colonel Challoner gave notice that 

 he should on a future occasion propose that the Society 

 should offer a prize for a practical Essay on the best mode 

 of draining sandy land. 



Southampton Meeting.— Mr. Shelley, as one of the 

 stewards appointed for the Southampton Meeting, in- 

 formed the Council, that agreeably with the directions of 

 the General Southampton Committee he had, in com- 

 pany with the Messrs. Gibbs, visited Southampton on the 

 previous day, for the special purpose of making the requi- 

 site arrangements for the ensuing Show of the Society in 

 that district, and now presented to the Council the joint 

 report of himself and those gentlemen on the results of 

 their personal visit and inspection of the localities pro- 

 posed for the adoption of the Society, and the conditions 

 under which they were offered. Mr. Shelley having read 

 the report, and detailed to the Council the ruinous propo- 

 sitions made to them by the authorities of Southampton, 

 and the great difficulties which presented themselves at 

 every ^tage of the proceedings, concluded by giving notice 

 tnat he should move at the next monthly Council to be 

 held on the 6th of March— 



StlwardnKr thC J"^ 1 * « alluded to in the Report of the 



^^^^Z n ^^S^ e the Annual Mertinff of 18ii 



ii-n r ; G J> b n bSa J S0 ^, venotice that he should, at the same 

 Tt' E?.MH h . f ° ll0Win S solutions :- 



holdi , nrthrAn e nn y .Vr Wr f eu - atinsthe selecti ™ of the place of 

 2dly That in f } Cou " t r>' Meeting be suspended. 



Meet LVha l not T'h '• * place of hol(lin S the A » nual Country 

 Societv g «K«V n - l be ? ec,detl »Pon, until three Members of the 



;h«™ or the Society. * r *"" "° "" " 1C 



^fo^h?n! iampt ^ Committeeimmediate1 ^ Md a meet- 

 doc ments in'nn 56 ° f ? nM ?* them ' b - y reference to aI1 the 



received ro " R?T° n ° f the S ° Ciety wU * had been 

 to the MeetL f Vo//* ° r other authoritie s in reference 

 Council tie X fii 4 , at So "««mpton f to lay before the 

 ^ prefer thV£ ? d c eclarati ™* which had induced them 

 *aich had hpnnff Southampton to that of other places 



*£ Xt MeerST 1 t0 "" 8ode * f ° r the P ur P" e ° f 



^^^S^ b ^vStu• , co ™ ica ^ d sugges " 



w *e received with tK "^^"^^gs and cottages, which 



Committee Mr r /* nks ' and refcrred to the Journal 



his lecture on th;Mt mapplied for leave to exhibit at 

 ^•tituiion on 1 ^whamcs 0f Agriculture, at the Royal 



^d Duci'e'. T U * £ March ' the Societ y' s "o^cl of 

 accordingly iuZd- f 1 " 11 ™ 101, ; and leave was granted 

 of hi * M SvstPm 1 -a ? ards P rese «ted to the Society 



*g"» ZZ*«£* ' '« ■*» the best tha^s of 

 **<* March! 1 theD ad J° urned to Wednesday next, the 



Vrentham ^"ffi* CLU BS. 

 2*on took place on ^^ meetin S of this Club, a dis- 

 J* the destruct on o? the Wh* ? *? **< meanS ° f h " der ' 



* 0r *«. With regard tolf plant by slu * s and ™ e - 



regard to the former of these, 8 everal re- 



medial measures were stated to have been pursued ; the 

 application of soot, lime, or common salt, in small pro- 

 portions, had each been attended with some degree of suc- 

 cess. It would appear necessary that the application of 

 any of these substances be in the night only ; for, 

 unless the slugs are exposed at the time of sowing, such 

 measures would prove ineffectual. Another plan pursued 

 was that of slicing Turnips about the land ; but the most 

 beneficial effects were experienced by strewing the land 

 with the tops of Turnips only, and in sufficient quantities 

 to afford ample food for these mollusca. Where this lat- 

 ter system has been adopted, the result has generally 

 been, that the plant of Wheat has been preserved, while 

 the leaves of the tops have been almost entirely consumed. 

 The injuries done by slugs are principally confined to an 

 early stage of the Wheat-crop, while the ravages of the 

 wireworm frequently extend over a length of time, and 

 affect the crop at different periods of i:s growth. In re- 

 ference to the latter, early ploughing, and afterwards ob- 

 taining a sufficient degree of solidity, may be considered 

 as practically amongst the best means to be taken as a 

 preventive. The effects of such a system have also fre- 

 quently been apparent, not only as a protection from 

 wire worm, but with reference to the ultimate value of the 

 crops. The wireworm is generally most destructive on 

 lands which have been fed through the summer, and also 

 on others where the previous layer was not good. In 

 these cases, shallow ploughing, as well as an additional 

 quantity of seed, were recommended. Treading the land 

 by sheep after the seed is deposited had also been prac- 

 tised, with a view of obtaining more solidity. When, 

 however, the crop is affected in the spring, as (notwith- 

 standing these precautions) is too frequently the case, the 

 greatest benefit appears to have arisen from lightly break- 

 ing the soil, either by light harrows, or even raking, as 

 early as circumstances may render practicable. A resolu- 

 tion was passed in accordance with these observations. — 

 J. D. Robinson, Assist. -Sec. 



Iftebtrfos. 



The Application of Geology to Agriculture, and to the 

 Improvement and Valuation of Land, with the Nature 

 and Properties of Soils, and the Principles of Culti- 

 vation. By Nicholas Whitley, Land Surveyor. Lon- 

 don. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843. 

 This work furnishes an example of the prevalent rage 

 for giving to Geology, applied to Agriculture, credit for 

 more than really belongs to it. The author says in his 

 preface that he has been led to enforce the application of 

 Geology to Agriculture, to which he hopes he has suc- 

 ceeded in demonstrating it to be no less valuable, as an 

 auxiliary, than it has been in the development of mineral 

 wealth ; and he enforces the application of Geology to 

 Agriculture, by such arguments as the following: — "But 

 whilst improvable land is worth more than its apparent 

 value, improved laud is worth less. If the improvement 

 is substantial and permanent, the full benefit of the in- 

 creased yearly value is obtained ; but this is not always 

 the case ; the drains may give way, or become blown, the 

 river may burst the embankment, or a high and forced 

 state of fertility may require such expensive manures to 

 keep it up, that a lower standard of produce would prove 

 the most profitable mode of culture. Geology leads us to 

 detect these circumstances. " We should be glad to know 

 how. We had thought that questions as to the sufficiency 

 of drains, the strength of embankments, or the economic 

 value of a given mode of cultivation, were to be solved, 

 not by the Geologist, but by the Engineer and Agricultu- 

 rist. And so it is throughout, whether it be the classifi- 

 cation of soils, the valuation of land, the improvement 

 of its texture, and chemical composition by adding 

 from other strata ingredients in which it is deficient 

 — by draining and subsoil-ploughing, in order to rid it of 

 superfluous moisture — by ploughing in a crop of Clover, 

 in order to increase the humus in the soil ; or whether 

 it be the detection in improved land of plethoric symptoms 

 indicating a tendency to apoplexy such as have been men- 

 tioned above — everything is ascribed to Geology. Such 

 exaggerated pretensions must ultimately do harm by 

 producing a reaction, and leading to a disparagement of 

 the value of geological knowledge to those engaged in the 

 valuation and improvement of land. 



The application of Geology to Agriculture may be said 

 to have commenced with the infancy of Geology itself as 

 an inductive science. William Smith endeavoured to 

 render those studies, by which he established the order in 

 which the sedimentary rocks succeed one another, sub- 

 servient to his professional duties as a land and mineral 

 surveyor and agricultural engineer. But his views, as 

 Professor Sedgwick has said, were in advance of the age, 

 and he suffered, as many men of genius suffered before 

 him, in his peace and his pecuniary prospects, from that 

 which constitutes his glory among geologists, and earned 

 for him the title of the Father of English Geology. Cony- 

 beare and Phillips, in their " Outlines of the Geology of 

 England and Wales," blended with their descriptions of the 

 different formations, notices of their agricultural charac- 

 ters. Dr. Buckland, in the opening of his u Bridgwater 

 Treatise,*' took a rapid glance at the effects of the geolo- 

 gical character of different districts of England, in in- 

 fluencing the nature of the industrial pursuits of their 

 inhabitants, and, by consequence, their numerical amount, 

 their wealth, the amount of health and longevity enjoyed 

 by them, dependent on the salubrity or insalubrity of their 

 employment, together with their moral condition as affected 

 by that employment. Sir H. De la Beche, in his " How 

 to Observe," remarked on the superior fertility observable 

 at the junctions of strata, arising from the intermixture of 

 their constituents, expressing surprise that effects so evi- 

 dent should not have oftener led farmers to seek improve- 



1 



mentby similar artificial mixtures of adjoining soils. In 

 his report on the Geology of Cornwall and Devon, he has 

 devoted a chapter to the relations between the Agriculture 

 and Geology of the various districts comprised in the surrey 

 —a field which had previously been broken by Dr. Paris 

 In communications to the Geological Societies of Corn- 

 wall. Professor Johnston of Durham has more recently 

 treated of the connection between Agriculture and Geology 

 in his lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology. 

 But the first Agriculturist who studied Geology purely for 

 its practical value in tie discrimination, improvement, 

 and valuation of land was Mr. Morton, who, in his work 

 on soils, has given the results of his personal examination 

 of every part of England, with that object in view, during 

 a period of years. From these sources, as well as the 

 works of Davy and Liebig on Agricultural Chemistry, and 

 all that has appeared of lafe in the Journal of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, on draining and subsoil-ploughing, 

 Mr. Whitley's woik is drawn. The volume is a compi- 

 lation throughout. To this we do not object when a 

 work is fairly announced as such, for a compilation may 

 be more useful than the m my and expensive works of 

 which it gives an epitome, and to which, as authorities, it 

 refers for all its statements which are not original. But 

 when it lays claim to originality, its'pretensions cannot be 

 allowed to pass as current coin without examination. The 

 Author of the work before us says that his is " principally 

 compiled from notes and observations made by him in 

 various parts of the country, and that though he is con- 

 scious of its many imperfections, he feels emboldened in 

 laying his facts and opinions before the public, by the 

 consideration that the subjects here treated of have not 

 received from practical men that attention which they 

 deserve ; and by a conviction that, at the present time, 

 when artificial manures are so extensively used, it is of 

 especial importance that the attention of all parties 

 connected with Agriculture should be directed to some 

 more accurate data from which to deduce the value of land, 

 than that which a surface view, abstractedly considered, 

 affords. The soils which occur in the west of England are 

 those which are most fully and particularly described.'* 

 Thereis, as we have said, scarcely anything in the book which 

 is the result of original observation. Even for his descrip- 

 tions of the West of England, that is, of Cornwall and 

 Devon, he has recourse to Paris and De la Beche, some- 

 times with, sometimes without acknowledgment. He has 

 gleaned, industriously enough, in every field, making 

 notes and observations, no doubt, of what he read, in 

 whatever part of the country he happened to be, but he 

 has not always been satisfied with legitimate gleaning, 

 making free, occasionally, with the sheaves, and stating r 

 as his own, the facts and opinions of others. Like most 

 gleaned corn, too, the sample is unequal, occasionally 

 containing a mixture of defective grain, with that which is 

 sound— of old and new theories without attempt to discri- 

 minate between them. Thus, for instance, at p. 115, he 

 ascribes, with Liebig, the exhausting effects of Corn crops to 

 the large quantity of the alkalies which they extract from 

 the soil, and the beneficial effects of Turnips and other 

 fallow crops, to the small quantity of inorganic food which 

 they require ; while in the Appendix A, we have a table of 

 the constituents of plants, from which, if Mr. Whitley will 

 take the trouble of making the calculation, he will find r 

 that while four quarters of Wheat and 3000 lbs. of Straw 

 take from the soil little more than five pounds of potash 

 and about the same quantity of soda, a crop of Turnips, 

 weighing 25 tons, or 56,000 lbs-, will take up 40 lbs. of 

 potash and 61 lbs. of soda. With silica, however, it is 

 quite the reverse. The Wheat crop contains full 93 lbs, 

 of it, and the Turnip crop not more than 20 lbs. Thus a 

 bare fallow, or a fallow crop not requiring silica, may 

 operate beneficially by the time which it affords for bring- 

 ing the slowly soluble silicates of the alkalies into solution, 

 and thus presenting the cereals with silica, not potash, in 

 a form capable of being assimilated by them. The author 

 is likewise involved in similar inconsistencies from attempt- 

 ing to adopt both of the opposing theories respecting the 

 assimilation of carbon by plants. We are told, for 

 instance, p. 62, that " although humus is only slightly 

 soluble in water, humic and ulmic acids, which are modifi- 

 cations of humus, unite and form soluble compounds with 

 alkalies. Alkaline earths exist in the soil in sufficient 

 quantities to form such compounds. It is therefore proba- 

 ble that humus not only forms a source of carbonic acid, but 

 also enters into plants in a liquid compound through their 

 roots." At p. 107 it is said, that/* decayed animal and 

 vegetable matter (humus) is of the first importance in 

 manuring. Without its presence in the soil, the applica- 

 tion of mineral manures will be of little service. If it 

 does not exist naturally in the soil, from the decay of ve- 

 getation, it must be supplied artificially." At p. 108 we 

 read, " It appears that three-fourths of the substance of 

 plants usually cultivated is derived from the air, and it is 

 on this fact that the principle of green manuring is 

 founded. If a crop of clover be grown, and ploughed in> 

 when it begins to flower, it will give to the soil four times 

 the amount of humus which it extracted from it. Land 

 which is rich in the inorganic food of plants, may, in this 

 manner, be furnished with a proper quantity of humus." 

 In taking a view of this plan for improving land from a 

 practical point, we think it would be found much more pro- 

 fitable, having obtained such a crop of Clover, to feed it off 

 on the ground with sheep, than to plough it in ; and that 

 such a proceeding would be equally beneficial to the land. 

 Notwithstanding these defects, however, Mr. Whitley's 

 compilation, though somewhat slight and superficial, is 

 not badly made. We have no doubt he will find the 

 knowledge which he has acquired from the works he has 

 read useful to him in his profession ; whether that which 

 he has to impart may not be better learned from " Morton 



