^ — = 



578 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



Tolume of the Society's Journal, the land is most valu- 

 able. When situated on the hill-side, it is necessarily 

 not so well suited for arable land ; and in consequence 

 of the continued practice of ploughing down hill, the 

 tops of many of the fields thus situated have the soil 

 entirely removed from them, and expose the yellow sand 

 of the subsoil ; this renders them still less valuable as 

 arable land. 



It is on this soil, in the Nailsworlh Valley, that the 

 only water-meadows occur that are to be found in our 

 district. The following statement, with which the pro- 

 prietor of these meadows favoured me, of the expense^ 

 and returns of irrigation in this particular instance, 

 shows most conspicuously the advantage of the opera- 

 tion : The extent of the meadows is about 15 acres. 



Before being irrigated they were valued at prices varying 

 from 10*. to 3/. per acre, and averaging about 30*. In 

 its origin *1 state the land rotted sheep, and was therefore 

 unsafe, except to put fat sheep on just bt fore going to 

 the butcher. The expense of building bridges, laying 

 out and digging the water-courses, &c, in fact the whole 

 expense of irrigation, amounted to about 15/. per acre. 

 This is higher than is the case in many instances, owing 

 to the number of bridges and aqueducts rendered neces- 

 iary by the narrowness of the valley. The annual ex- 

 pense, including repairing the hatches, clearing out the 

 water-courses, &c, amounts to 15s. per acre ; to this is 

 to be added l">s. as the expense of harvesting the hay 

 crop. The return from this outlay is in the form of a 

 greatly increased value of spring and autumn feed, and 

 also in the entire destruction of any tendency in the land 

 to rot sheep. The meadows are generally shut up 

 during the first week in May, and the crop is cut in less 

 than two months ; it averages 35 cwt. If it were allowed 

 to grow three weeks longer, it would probably average 45 

 cwt. per acre ; but this would be at the expense of a 

 deterioration in the quality of the hay and in the value of 

 the latter-math. The value of the early spring feed till 

 May, and the autumn feed till December, is estimated 

 at '21. per acre. The following, then, is a statement of 

 the profits per acre, per annum, arising from irrigation, 

 in this instance : — 



Dr. Cash. £ $. d. 



To 35 cwt. of Hay, at 



6(i*. a ton . .550 

 To value of spring and 



autumn teed .200 



£7 5 o 



£ s. d. 



I 10 



Contra. Cr. 



By former value of the 

 land per acre 



By 5 per cent, on out- 

 lay of 15/. per acre 15 



By annual expense of 

 irrigation 



By annual expense of 

 harvesting Hay 



Balance — profit per 

 acre 



15 



15 



3 10 



£7 5 



To this is to be added the immense advantage to the 

 farmer of being able to carry the crop off the land each 

 year without injuring it. The manure atising from the 

 eon sump (ion of the Hay-crop thus goes to enrich the 

 fields of an arable farm in the neighbourhood. The good 

 done by irrigation in this instance does not seem to be 

 owing to the deposition of any soapy or oily matter which 

 the water may occasionally contain from having passed 

 through the mills higher up the valley. In an instance 

 of a water- meadow at Longfords, one of a series possessed 

 by the proprietor of those just alluded to, there were two 

 descrip-ions of water employed : the one contained the 

 washings and sweepings, &c, of the streets of Minchin- 

 hampton, the market town in the neighbourhood, and 

 the other was brought directly from a spring close to the 

 field ; the beneficial effects of irrigation were greatly 

 more manifest in that part of the field over which the 

 pure spring-water* was used than in that watered by the 

 washings of Mmchinhampton. This is certainly nof the 

 result which would have been expected, and it shows that 

 land is benefited by the process, not so much by the 

 deposition of sediment, as by the protection given to it 

 during the frosts of winter.— M. S. 



ON THE APPLICATION OF MANURES. 



In former communications I expressed an opinion 

 that the main uses of the roots of a plant were two-fold ; 

 the one to fix itself in the ground, the other to seek 

 water. It is in search of water, and of that alone, 

 that the young root in the first instance descends 

 into the earth : did it seek other nutriments, it would 

 rather remain near the surface, where such matters 

 abound. Hut that Providence, which always works by 

 the simplest means, where simple means are sufficient 

 for the end, has by this one attraction made the root, by 

 fixing it in the ground, a holdfast also for the fabric over 

 head. The plant has no foresight of the necessity of 

 securing itself in its position, but impelled by this pow- 

 erful attraction to supply itself with the water necessary 

 for the growth of its stem, its radicle shoots several 

 inches into the soil to insure a supply ; and before the 

 plumule raises its head to seek the light of heaven, it has 

 thus firmly established its hold on the earth. Does the 

 existence of the attractive influence of water require 

 illustration? A root has been uncovered, a wet sponge 

 placed near it in a direction different from that in which 

 the root was proceeding, the root soon altered its 

 position, and turned towards the sponge. The attractive 

 power of water may be exemplified in other actions than 

 in those on the roots of plants :— When a wet sponge is 

 held under the leaves of a tree, they bend down in order 

 to touch it. If a vessel of water be put within six inches 

 of a growing Cucumber plant, in less than twenty-four 

 hours the latter will alter its direction ; the branches 



* It should be stated that the spring water was highly im- 

 pregnated with the carbonate of 1 ime. 



will bend towards the water, and never alter their cour.- 

 until they come in contact wi'h it. Any root, not 

 naturally fibrous, will become so if exposed to the action 

 of running water. It thus increases its mouths, and the. 

 necessity no longer exists of striking its roors deeper 

 into the soil. Liebig states, " Fruits, leaves, seeds, 

 nearly every part of thi plants of a former world, except 

 i he roots, are found in the brown cod formations." In 

 that age of the world, when the alluvial formation of 

 these layers took place, the surface must have been so 

 moist as to preclude the necessity of plants sending their 

 roots deep into the earth in quest of water ; the roots 

 were small and fibrous on that account, and nit because 

 of deficiency of carbon in the soil, as assumed by Liebig. 

 But it may be asked, Does not the same cause act on 

 the plumule? I would say no ; or rather, that it is coun- 

 teracted by an opposite and stronger attraction, to which 

 the plumule is by its nature more subject. It is the at- 

 traction of light, and light alone, (not heat, for the 

 surface of the earth is warmer than at any distance from 

 it) that compels*the stem to rise into the air ; it has no 

 need to seek water, but it requires for all its purposes 

 light ; and by it the stem is brought into the region 

 where all that is further necessary for the support 

 of the plant is to be found — the gases of the atmo- 

 sphere and the various effluvia which exhale from 

 organic matters in a state of decay on the surface 

 of the earth, or buried skin-deep within her bosom. 

 That light has an attraction powerful enough thus to 

 make the plant shoot upwards is a matter of every-day 

 observation ; the Pelargonium in the cottager's window 

 sends out its branches to the light of day ; it extends 

 them not into the darker, though by many degrees 

 warmer, recesses of the chamber. A very strong and 

 curious proof of the attractive power of light offered 

 itself to me in 1827, at Feahle, in the county of Clare. 

 To ascertain the effect of certain steeps, I had sown some 

 Oar.s in a small roo/n into which the light was admitted 

 by a single pane of glass ; the stems tended in direct 

 lines to this pane; but there happened to be a stone 

 about 6 inches high in the direct line between the pane 

 and some of them ; all the stems so situated declined from 

 the right line to the pane, from the perpendicular, and 

 from the stone, and took such a direction as to strike 

 the ray of light that proceeded from the pane over the 

 stone at rigfrt angles ; that is, they took the shortest 

 possible line to arrive at the ray of light, and on reaching 

 it, curved directly towards the pane. When seeds are 

 sown too thickly, the plants are drawn up, according to the 

 popular phrase — they are drawn up by the attraction of 

 light ; on the contrary, when the seeds are sown thinly, 

 and light is admitted around the plants, they spread out 

 and become branchy. 



But requisite, as the presence of light is to the growth 

 of the stem, it is probable that its absence is as favour- 

 able to the growth of the root ; there has long been a 

 cherished opinion of the working-gardeners and farmers 

 in favour of sowing seeds in " the darks," that is, when 

 the moon reflects not the light of the sun (she does not 

 reflect his heat). Martin Doyle cites (though he smiles 

 at it) the authority of a Wexford gardener for sowing his 

 Cauliflower-seed when the nights are dark in the month 

 of May. We are too generally prone to scepticism when 

 the extent of our reason falls short of the depths either of 

 Revelation or Nature ; it is not impossible that popular 

 belief may be here, as it frequently is, better founded 

 than we are disposed to admit. Whether the absence of 

 light be favourable or not to the germination of the root, 

 as the dark nights are probably passed away when the 

 plumule is fit to be acted on by light, the moon's full 

 lustre may serve the plants essentially in this their early, 

 and it may be their more susceptible period of growth. 

 — J. M. Goodiffe, Revenue Police, Granard, Ireland. 



[Aug. ft 





the various means of adjustment, till he gets thTTninfe 

 ment to work properly. In the case of the whJl 

 plough, on the other hand, the plough may not be pro 

 perly adjusted; but it will, nevertheless, keep to hi 

 depth, being hindered from going in by the wheels, whicfc 

 thus hinder that inconvenience for the ploughman tt 

 which in the other case he was subjected ; and he there! 

 fore continues working it in that state, and will not 

 alter it, though it should so much dip in as to jerk f / 

 ward, as if it were running on tiptoe. In the one caJ 

 the horses are sure of being properly treated, for their 

 comfort depends upon the very same circumstances ai 

 that of the workman, while in the other the horses must 

 suffer from the increase in the amount and in the irre 

 gulanty of the draught, because the comfort of the man 

 is untouched by that increase. With respect to the 

 third argument, its force is acknowledged upon level 

 land; but the very thing which insures uniformity of 

 depth in ploughing level land will, it must be remembered 

 increase the irregularity of this point in the case of un- 

 even land. 



The truth of the first argument in favour of the wheel- 

 plough is acknowledged ; but its force is questioned, and 

 I think with justice, when we look at the agricultural cha- 

 racter of the districts into which it is admitted, and at 

 that of those where it is not used. It is urged that the 

 implement which performs its work in a passable wav, 

 independently of any attention bestowed on it by the 

 workman, is not necessarily on that account to be con- 

 sidered a good one, for this reason, that it tends to pro- 

 duce carelessness in the workman ; and, therefore, that 

 the use of the wheel-plough tends to deteriorate the class 

 of agricultural labourers as regards their skill, their in- 

 dustry, and activity. It will not do to say that we can 

 employ boys instead of men with the wheel-plough ; 

 many practical men will acknowledge, to a considerable 

 extent, the truth of the remark made by a practical 

 farmer on this subject — that for each boy he had on his 

 farm he was forced to keep a man to look after him. 



I perceive, however, that notwithstanding my attempt 

 to state simply the opinion of the two parties, and then 

 judge between them, I have already expressed my own 

 opinions on the subject. It is possible that a spot so 

 level, and workmen so careful and attentive may be ob- 

 tained, that the wheel-plough may be superior for its cul- 

 tivation to the swing-plough ; but for general purposes 

 I certainly believe the swing-plough to be the superior 

 implement. There is one advantage which it has over 

 the wheel-plough, viz., that there are few soils which are 

 not ready for ploughing, and which may not be ploughed 

 by the swing-plough, before the farmer could get on it 

 with the wheel-plough, for the wheel clogs with the wet 

 earth, and thus not only is a continual hindrance to the 

 operation, but by getting an increase, in the shape of earth, 

 to its circumference, the depth at which the implement 

 works is variable. 



The wheel-plough is also objectionable as an invasion 

 of the original simplicity of the implement, and it cer- 

 tainly is so in some of the monstrous forms which it 

 assumes — that, for instance, of the old Berkshire plough. 

 —M. 



ON SWING AND WHEEL-PLOUGHS. 

 It is evident that the wheel has been an addition to 

 the simple original form of the plough. Whoever added 

 it did so, no doubt, with a view to its improvement; 

 probably in order to assist his own imperfect management 

 of it. Again, there is no doubt but that an implement is 

 perfect i n proportion as its work is independent of the skill 

 of hiin who manages it. Upon this fact, those who prefer 

 the wheel-plough found their first argument in its favour. 

 They say that it requires less skill for its management 

 than the swing-plough does— that a boy may guide it. 

 This is, doubtless, true. They say, in the second place, 

 that the draught of the swing-plough is greater than 

 that of the wheel-plough. This point, however, has not 

 been so definitively settled by experiment, but that it will 

 be fair to give the arguments of the opponents of the 

 wheel-ploughs on the point. These shall be stated in their 

 place : in the mean time, it may be said that, supposing 

 the two implements to be guided each bv a man of ordi- 

 nary skill, the draught of the wheel-plough will at any 

 rate be more uniform, and so far, easier to the horses. 

 They state, in the third place, that the depth of the 

 furrow is by this plough preserved constant and uniform, 

 and is not liable to that irregularity which marks the 

 unskilful ploughman. These, so far as I know, are all 

 the arguments used by the wheel ploughmen. They are 

 answered as follows :— To the second one. it is said that 

 the draught of the wheel-plough may be less in particular 

 instances than that of the swing-plough ; but it is not so 

 as a general rule. The plough may be so regulated as 

 to "swim fair," though it be a swing-plough, so that 

 by merely holding it in an upright position it will work, 

 at a constant depth. If the plough does not swim fair, 

 all the effort to keep it in its pUce comes upon the 

 ploughman, whose labour is thus increased, so much 

 bo, that he will not hesitate at once to proceed shifting 



ON MINERAL AND INORGANIC MANURES. 



No. XXIV. 

 By Professor Charles Sprengel. 

 The ashes of most herbaceous plants have a greater 

 value than those of wood, being richer in several im- 

 portant salts. The analysis of Rape straw will serve as a 

 sample. 1 00,000 parts of the ashes of Rape straw contain. 

 2,065 parts of silica. 



f alumina. 

 2,323 „ •< oxide of iron. 



(_ oxide of manganese. 



16,912 „ lime. 

 3,100 ,, magnesia. 

 18,800 ,, potash, partly combined with silica. 



11^210 ,, soda. 



13,340 ,, sulphates of lime and potash. 



9,900 ,, phosphate of lime. 

 11,350 ,, chloride of sodium. 

 11,000 ,, carbonates of lime, potash, and mag- 

 nesia. 



100,000 parts. 

 If, therefore, an acre is manured with 1000 lbs. of ashes 

 of Rape straw, the soil will receive 169 lbs. lime, 188 

 lbs. potash, 112 lbs. soda, 133 lbs. sulphuric acid, 

 99 lbs. phosphoric acid, and 113 lbs. chlorine ; and thus 

 it appears that its effects will be greater than those of 

 wood-ashes. The ashes of Rape straw, however, are 

 not the richest in saline matter : they are surpassed in 

 that respect by those of Maize and Bean straw, the 

 herbage of Potatoes, and the stems of Tobacco. In 

 order °to manure with Rape, it is best to spread the 

 straw thickly over the field, and to set it on fire. The 

 heat will act beneficially on the soil, and kill also all 

 vermin ; on which account the result of this operation is 

 alwavs very productive. 



Most people believe that the ashes of wood and 

 herbaceous plants improve vegetation only by neutralising 

 the acid (humic acid) contained in the soil, or by bring- 

 ing the coal of humus to decomposition ; this is, how- 

 ever, a mistaken idea. The carbonates of potash, lime, 

 and magnesia, which alone could accomplish this, do 

 not occur in it in that quantity which would enable them 

 to act powerfully: thus, 200 lbs. of potash neutralise 

 only 800 lbs. of humic acid ; 200 lbs. of lime no more 

 than 2000 lbs. ; and 100 lbs. magnesia only 900 lbs. 

 Consequently, the whole of the carbonic salts contained 

 in 1000 lbs. of ashes, neutralise only 3700 lbs. of humic 

 acid ; whilst the furrow-slice of an acre on which these 



f* 









