At Cockle Park and Clifton-on-Bowmont. 119 



101b Id, the College produced 13 tons 7^ cwt., and the 

 College estimates that this raanurial application brought 

 in a profit due to manure of £23 lis 2d. But how was 

 this profit estimated? By comparing the yield with 

 that of the no-manure section, which only produced 

 2 tons 16 cwt. But if this section had been coated with 

 a deeply-rooted turf there is no reason to suppose, as 

 mine is a poor land farm, that it would not have pro- 

 duced as much as the manured section, costing 101s Id 

 per acre, and it must be remembered that, when grow- 

 ing the turf, no expense other than that of the seed 

 would have been incurred, while the hay and grazing 

 obtained when growing the turf would, at a small cost, 

 have yielded a handsome profit* — the average cost of 

 the seed divided over the years when the turf was being 

 formed coming to about 10s a year — varying in occa- 

 sional years with the goodness or badness of the grass 

 seed crop, and the demand for seeds. From what I 

 have shown it seems clear that the Board of Agriculture 

 is really spending the national funds in teaching agri- 

 culturists how to farm at a loss. 



These conclusions are confirmed by an experiment I 

 made in 1901 in the Big Haugh field, by which I lost 

 about the rent of the land by adding dung and kainit to 

 my ploughed-iu turf. The manured section gave 15 tons 

 of potatoes an acre, at an estimated cost for manure 

 of £2 10s; the turf-manured section gave 14 tons 

 6 cwt., estimating the potatoes at £2 per ton, the 

 result was that we lost £1 2s, or about the rent of 

 the land, from having used manures in addition to tuif. 

 This year, which 1 am told is an inferior potato year as 

 compared to last year, the potatoes, grown on Hayhope 

 Shank Field East, show a decline to 12 tons 18 cwt. 4 lb. 

 on the manured section, and 12 tons 7 cwt. 1 lb. where 



* As it might be supposed that a good turf could not be grown at 

 Cookie Park, as it is a poor clay soil, I would refer the reader to 

 Appendix III., giving results of experiments on the Abbotsley poor 

 clay soil with one of my mixtures, which has there produced a fine 

 turf in four years. 



