154 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



[Mar. 9, 



at this distance the land could not be cultivated, and 

 could hardly be kept clean ; it became very hard, and 

 jt was probably on that account that so many roots 

 went to seed. This year we shall adopt an average 

 distance of 18 inches from row to row ; but in order 

 the more efficiently to use the horse-hoe, we shall sow 

 the seed in rows alternately one foot and two feet 

 apart ; the one-foot interval must be kept clean by 

 hand-hoeing, the two feet interval we shall be able to 

 horse-hoe ; and one side at any rate of every row will 

 thus receive the benefit of deeply stirring the land. 

 Whenever the rows can be distinguished, the land 

 should be hoed, and whenever the plants have come 

 into full leaf they should be singled out. The dis- 

 tance at which they should be left may be 8 or 9 

 inches. When the land is apt to get soon covered 

 with small weeds, not easily distinguishable from the 

 young Carrot-plants, it is a good plan to sow a few 

 Oats along with the seed. The Oats spring up be- 

 fore the Carrots, and point out the position of the fu- 

 ture row, so that the land may be hoed when neces- 

 sary, even though the Carrots are not up, with- 

 out any chance of destroying the young plants. 

 The summer cultivation of the crop consists 

 in a repetition of the hoeing whenever necessary 

 (this will cost at least lbs. per acre), and occasional 

 horse-hoeings to stir the land. All the plants which 

 run to seed should be pulled up whenever they are 

 seen, and they may at once be carried to the yard for 

 the pigs. 



The best variety of Carrot for field culture is un- 

 questionably the White Uelgian. On suitable land, 

 under good cultivation, the farmer may expect, in 

 ordinary seasons, a crop of this root weighing from 

 18 to 22 tons per acre. It should be ready to harvest 

 towards the end of October; and before then we shall 

 return to the subject. 



ON THE SOIL AND CLIMATE OF THE 

 SHORES OF THE MORAY FRITH, IN SCOT- 

 LAND No. I. 



From the remarks contained in the first two Num- 

 bers of your new Paper, on the necessity of a general 

 knowledge of the soil and climate of a district, towards the 

 right understanding of the peculiarities of its husbandry, 

 the public, I trust, may expect soon to find in your 

 columns a series of papers descriptive of all the principal 

 Agricultural districts of the United Kingdom. Without 

 norne general notices of this sort, to which we may refer, 

 the vast mass of detached observations accumulating in 

 your pages may becomeunmanageable, and practices in one 

 district be found quite inapplicable in others. As you 

 will, no doubt, receive many communications from the 

 North of Scotland, which exports a good deal of grain and 

 fat stock to the English markets, and as throughout this 

 district the Lothian system of husbandry is now exten- 

 sively and successfully followed, it has occurred to me 

 that a short popular account of its soil and climate may 

 not be unacceptable to many of your English readers. In 

 the present paper I will confine myself to the north-east- 

 ern side of Scotland, which, in fact, is also by far the most 

 productive and important one ; and in a general sense, it 

 may be observed, that the cultivated zone in this district 

 extends only for a fevr miles inland from the shores of 

 the Moray Frith. In this district examples, yearly in- 

 creasing in size and value, exist, as I have said, of a suc- 

 cessful imitation of the best Scotch or Lothian system of 

 husbandry, with this peculiarity, however, that throughout 

 the Lothians the soil and subsoil have been naturally 

 enriched by the clay and mineral alkalies resulting 

 from the decomposition of the trap and porphyry 

 rocks, which so universally prevail in the Southern 

 Lowlands of Scotland, while in the northern district to 

 which I refer, there are no secondary trap or porphyry 

 rocks of any extent, and the clay which does occur has 

 resulted from the disintegration of primary gneiss and 

 granite and the older felspathic rocks, and from the 

 breaking up of secondary shales and aluminous slates. 

 Stiff clay loams are hence rare with us, while light sandy 

 soils are by far the most prevalent in the Agricultural 

 portions of the north Highlands. This results from the 

 prevalence of sandstone rocks along the whole north- 

 eastern shores of the country ; and any deviations from 

 this structure will be readily accounted for by attending 

 to the following slight geological description. 



The great basin of the Moray Frith appears to have 

 been at one time filled with strata of the old red sand- 

 stone formation, having superimposed upon them mem- 

 bers of the Lias and Oolitic series, and of other partial or 

 local deposits as high up as the chalk, but of which latter 

 formations only faint traces are now to be found at wide 

 intervals along the Ross and Sutherland coasts, and in a 

 few detached spots in Moray and Banffshires. The great 

 sandstone pavement itself has been most extensively 

 denuded and cut up by the ocean, so much so that it now 

 exists only as a narrow frame-work to the primitive rocks 

 composing the interior of the country on which it 

 reposes — the inner boundary of the sandstone being an 

 irregular line running generally round the whole coast at 

 the distance of from 2 to 10 miles from the sea, except in 

 Caithness, which county is entirely covered by this rock, 

 whose beds are also prolonged into and constitute 

 almost all the Orkney Islands. In many places, especially 

 in the lower parts of the country, the rocks retain the 

 horizontal position in which they were at first deposited, 

 but in others they are found in undulating lines, aud are 

 often contorted and broken up by intruding masses aud 



spurs of granite against the sides of which they are now 

 abutted at highly inclined angles. Near Geddes and 

 Cawdor Castle in Nairnshire, the black rock of Inver- 

 farikaig. and the precipices below Mealfourvonie on 

 Loch Ness, Craigphadrich, near Inverness, the ridge from 

 Avoch to Cromarty, the Ord of Caithness and other 

 picturesque localities, beautiful instances of the intrusion 

 of the amorphous granites among the sandstone layers 

 occur, t^ius giving rise to much of the irregularity and 

 boldness of our inland fastnesses, and of our projecting 

 headlands and rocky coasts. 



The sandstone, or Devonian system, and its associated 

 beds, are divisible into three great groups: — lsf. The 

 uppermost consists chiefly of pure yellow freestones, 

 such as those of Bishopmill and Quarrywood at Elgin, 

 which form beautiful and durable building-stones, and 

 which were formerly regarded as the yellow sandstones 

 peculiar to the coal formation. 2nd. Gray and variegated 

 sandstones, with soft bituminous and calcareous shales 

 and flagstones ; all highly charged with bituminous 

 matter, the remains most probably of extinct marine 

 vegetables and fishes, of which impressions and scales are 

 still occasionally found. These beds were formerly held 

 as occupying the place, in the north of Scotland, of the 

 true coal formation, though not exactly identical with it; 

 (see Murchison and Sedgwick's papers, in the Geological 

 Society's Transactions, on the Brora Coal-field, &c, and 

 Anderson's Highland Guide, first edition, p. 197); and 

 many attempts have at different times been made to pro- 

 cure coal from the deposit, but without success. 3d. The 

 fundamental rock of the series is the true old red sand- 

 stone, with its associated coarse conglomerate, together 

 forming the round-backed undulating chain of hills (often 

 presenting abrupt escarpments and finely-shaped conical 

 summits) which encompasses the whole country, being 

 interposed between the low plains and the high and rough 

 primitive mountains of the interior. This sandstone, 

 which is usually of brick-red colour and of a great diver- 

 sity of texture and hardness, is by far the most abundant 

 rock in the secondary strata ; and is in general a mere 

 agglutination of sand coloured by the red oxide of iron, 

 though in many places it is highly micaceous and alumi- 

 nous. It is the parent, so to speak, of all the superior 

 beds, which (though at one time it was somewhat difficult 

 to find their true geological position) have, of late, been 

 prouounced as belonging to the same old red-sandstone 

 formation, in consequence of the identity of the organic 

 remains found in both the lower and the upper strata*. 



In some few places, as at Linksfield, Inverugie, and 

 Cothall, in Morayshire, and at Helmsdale, in Sutherland, 

 irregular unstratified masses of a concretionary limestone 

 (called cornstone), a deposit most probably from ancient 

 hot springs, occur subordinate to the sandstones, but in 

 general the district in question is devoid of lime ; gritty 

 quartz or sand being by far the most abundant ingredient 

 of the rocks. 



The distribution, in greater or less quantities, of the 

 several members of the foregoing series, affects much the 

 fertility and outward aspect of different parts of the dis- 

 trict around the Moray Frith ; and in my next paper I 

 will shortly describe the leading features of each portion 

 of country in which the different members respectively 

 prevail, and then advert to the general covering of gravel 

 which almost universally constitutes our subsoil, and will 

 conclude with a brief sketch of our northern climate. — 

 G. Anderson, Secretary to the Horticultural and Far- 

 mers' Societies of Inverness. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MANURES. 



From the numerous experiments which have been 

 made with different manures in various parts of the king- 

 dom, on almost every variety of soil and situation, it is 

 reasonable to hope that by a comparison of the results 

 obtained by these means, we may arrive at something near 

 the truth, and be enabled to form an estimate of the rela- 

 tive value of the substances that may have been made the 

 subject of investigation. It is with the view of assisting 

 in this important work, that I have received the permis- 

 sion of Sir Charles Lemon, Bart., M.P., to transmit you 

 the following details of some experiments made at Car- 

 clew, in 1843, for the purpose of testing, on a small scale, 

 the merits of certain manure?, when applied as a top- 

 dressing to growing crops ; and although they are far too 

 limited in extent for us to draw any positive conclusions 

 from them, as to the real value or efficiency of any 

 of the substances employed, they will probably be useful 

 in some degree as exhibiting their fertilising powers under 

 circumstances precisely similar in every respect. 



The subjects selected for experiment were, 1, nitrate of 

 soda ; 2, sulphate of soda ; 3, guano ; 4, sulphate of 

 ammonia; 5, Stott's soluble manure; and 6, drainings 

 from the farmyard. The field considered as the most 

 suitable for giving the whole a fair trial, was one with a 

 high open exposure sloping to the south, where the soil is 

 a free light loam, averaging about a foot in depth, on a 

 yellow clayey subsoil, interspersed with spar. It had been 

 well manured the previous season, and cropped with 

 Turnips. After these were removed, the ground was 

 ploughed and prepared for Barley, which was sown in the 

 latter part of April. On the 15th May the manures were 

 applied, the tenth part of an acre being allotted for each 

 experiment. 



1. Nitrate of Soda.— The quantity used was 38f lbs., 

 which is at the rate of about 3 cwt. per acre. It was sown 

 by hand with the utmost care, so as to distribute it as 

 equally as possible over the plot of ground. Little or no 

 effect was observable for some time afterwards, owin? no 



* The most Interesting and beautiful account i>f the very 

 strange organism- in these deposits occurs in Mr. Miller's " Old 

 Red Sandstone," a work which has justly received the highest 

 praise from the first geologists in Britain. 



doubt, to the unusually cold wet weather, by which ve* 

 tation generally was very much retarded. No soon 

 however, did it become warm and sunny, than a chan^' 

 was apparent, not only in the more rapid growth of th* 

 plants, which soon outstripped those around them but 

 also in the colour of their stems and leaves, which'were 



alike remarkable, both for their greater size and the rich 

 deep green they subsequently assumed. During the sea- 

 son, this plot maintained its fine healthy appearance "from 

 which I was led to infer that nitrate of soda would prove 

 a most valuable manure ; but the result was very different 

 to what I anticipated, the weight of the produce being j Q 

 Straw, 199 lbs., in Corn, 178 lbs., which measured 32 

 Winchester bushels, equal to 37£ bushels per acre and 

 less by 6\ bushels per acre than any in the series. 



I was not prepared for such a difference between the 

 weight of the Corn and Straw in this experiment and 

 those of the others ; and I am quite at a loss to account 

 for the deficiency. The only way in which I imagine it 

 to have arisen, was from the plants having been stimulated 

 by the application to become more succulent and vascular 

 than they would have been under other circumstances- so 

 that when they arrived at maturity, and were cut and 

 dried, the Straw and Grain lost in weight more than their 

 bulk and appearance would otherwise have led us to expect. 



2. Sulphate of Soda. — The same quantity, 33£ lbs., of 

 this salt was used as in No. 1. The large hard lumps in 

 which form it arrived, were pounded and reduced to a 

 fine powder. It was then sown by hand in a similar way 

 to the preceding, and to the same cause may be ascribed 

 the slowness of its action, no change being perceptible 

 until warm weather made its appearance, when its effects 

 became nearly as striking as in the previous experiment. 

 The plants acquired a dark healthy green colour, and 

 were upon the whole nearly as tall and luxuriant as those 

 treated with nitrate of soda ; but here again the produce 

 was less than expected, the weight of Straw being 264 lbs., 

 of Corn 215 lbs., measuring 4 bushels and 3 gallons, which 

 is at the rate of 43f bushels per acre. In so far, there- 

 fore, as we may judge from the result of these two expe- 

 riments, it would seem as if neither the nitrate, nor sulphate 

 of soda were adapted for using on thin light soils. It is 

 perfectly true that they act in some way as a stimulant to 

 the growing plant, as shown by the places where they 

 have been used being invariably of a dark healthy green; 

 but I am inclined to think their beneficial effects, if any, 

 will be found to be very transitory, and by no means 99 

 wonderful as they have been represented. 



3. Guano. — The conflicting statements which have ap- 

 peared from time to time respecting the proper quantify 

 which ought to be applied of this manure, and the failures 

 that have occurred from using it too bountifully, induced 

 me to use a much smaller proportion of it than is now 

 recommended, but, notwithstanding this, its effects were 

 truly remarkable ; for, although only 16-J lbs. were sown 

 dry over this allotment, which is at the rate of about 1] 

 cwt. per acre, it could readily be distinguished during the 

 growing season from any other part of the field. The 

 corn tillered well, and appeared thicker than in Nos. 1 

 and 2, and although somewhat shorter, it was in other 

 respects equally strong and healthy, and of a rich deep 

 green. It deserves to be noticed that, at the time of 

 binding up the Corn, the workmen remarked what appeared 

 to them to be a difference in the weight of the sheave?, 

 compared with those in the first and second plots, which 

 they had previously bound up, and the result showed an 

 increase over the nitrate of soda, of no less than 81 lbs. 

 of Straw, and 74 lbs. of Corn ; the weight of the Straw 

 being 280 lbs., of Corn, 252 lbs., equal to 5 bushels, or 50 

 bushels per acre. Besides this experiment, I have made 

 several others with guano in a liquid state, on vegetables 

 in the kitchen garden, all of which have satisfied me that 

 this manure, when unadulterated, is one of the most 

 powerful that can possibly be employed for gardening 

 purposes. Its effects are visible in the course of eight or 

 ten days after its application. For Onions, Celery, and 

 the Cabbage tribe, it surpasses anything of the kiod I ever 

 witnessed. I had portions of each of those vegetables 

 watered with guano, without being made aware of the 

 particular spots so treated, and at the end of a week I had 

 no difficulty in pointing out every one of them where tne 

 guano had been used. 



4.— Sulphate of Ammonia.— A small quantity of tins 

 salr, prepared by gas liquor acting on sulphuric aci . , 

 produced from the roasting of copper ore, was forwar 

 from Bristol to Sir Charles Lemon for the purpose or ex- 

 periment, with the following directions :— " The q™ n "£ 

 usually applied is about 2 cwt. per acre. Upon br ^ 

 lands or growing crops it may be sown broadcast ;; , 

 preparing the land for seeds, harrowed lightly into _ 



ith 



ground; or it may be mixed up in any proportion ™ 

 soil or any decayed vegetable matter that may be 

 easily procured.'' In the present case the q uanllt . y Vi- 

 was 22£lbs., which after being reduced and made i™™' 

 fine, was sown by hand unmixed with any other subst 

 A fortnight after the application I remarked a J rlflin ° d 

 ference in the colour of the young plants, whicli se ^.^ 

 to be of a paler green from those adjoining them ; ou ^ 

 soon wore off, and was succeeded by a fine healthy g 

 which they retained during the rest of the season- ^ 

 Corn was about the same thickness as where tncg 

 was used, and of an average height. The P rodtt f e . * b . f 

 of Straw, 209 lbs. ; of Corn, 232 lbs., equa to U u ~ 

 or 47| bushels per acre. Between lh : s and 8 UBD0 j w 

 is a difference in favour of the latter of 18lbs. in the* h 

 of Straw, and 20 lbs. in Corn ; while the difference 1 ^ 

 cost of sulphate of ammonia is nearly double 



guano. ration 



5.—Stotrs Soluble Manure.- This is a prep* ■ 

 somewhat resembling the last, but of what K 



