120 Potato Experiments at Cockle Park 



Park, in order to stimulate the seed hay crop with 

 various manures from a cost of 13s. to 36s. per acre, show 

 results which, as compared with my results from turf- 

 manured land, are distinctly inferior, so that the farmer 

 working on my system would have lost the value of the 

 artificial manures had he used them. When I pass to 

 the potato experiments at the College, as shown in its 

 seventh annual Report, the results are still more striking. 

 As shown in my paper delivered at Cambridge, Aug., , 

 1904, I last year produced, without any manure other 

 than turf, 13 tons 14 cwts. of potatoes per acre. With 

 the aid of 12 tons dung and &J cwts. artificials, costing 

 101s. Id., the College produced 13 tons 7^ cwts., and the 

 College estimates that this manurial 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 cwts. 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 growing 

 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. Prom 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. 



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

 Cockle 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 SOU. with one of my mixtures, which has there produced a fine 

 turf in four years. 



