( 70 ) [Jan. 



CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 



I. AGEICULTUEE. 



Dubing the past autumn, after several months of the long-continued 

 drought of 1864, Professor Church, of the Koyal Agricultural College, 

 examined for water the thirteenth inch in thickness downwards from 

 the surface of a clay-land field near Cirencester. Several samples of 

 the subsoil taken from this depth were analyzed. In one case, where 

 the soil had been deeply cultivated during the previous autumn, no 

 less than 28-6 per cent, of the apparently dry layer examined, was 

 water. In another, where the subsoil was taken from uncultivated 

 land, which had not been disturbed within memory, the percentage 

 of water was 19-2. In a third case, the subsoil of a kitchen-garden 

 which had been deeply trenched in autumn, yielded 26 '2 per cent, of 

 water. In a fourth, the subsoil in the same garden, where the bed 

 had been only half dug, yielded 20*5 per cent. 



There had been no rain to speak of since the spring, and yet these 

 enormous quantities of water still remained in the subsoil. The soil 

 experimented on is " a light calcareous clay loam, resting on the 

 Forest marble." These facts are instructive, both as showing the 

 great storeage of moisture within the land, available during seasons of 

 drought, and also as indicating to tillage farmers the greatly-increased 

 capacity for moisture which deep and thorough tillage gives to land. 



We mentioned last year the publication of Lectures on Dairy 

 Farming, by Mr. Harrison, M. Inst. C.E., of Frocester Court, Glouces- 

 tershire. This gentleman having for several years kept a record of 

 his dairy, experience has reproduced it all by means of curved lines, 

 representing the varying weekly milk produce of individual cows, and 

 of the whole herd throughout the year. The annexed diagrams are 

 prepared from his figures. They indicate the weekly yield per cow 

 of the whole herd during the three years named. It is plain that if 

 the weekly quantity of milk yielded by a cow were represented by 

 vertical lines of correspondent lengths, stationed at equal intervals 

 along a base line of sufficient length to receive fifty-two such lines for 

 the successive weeks of the year, they would, in any ordinary case, 

 where the cow had been kept in health and produce by a uniform me- 

 thod of feeding, commence at a maximum height, and gradually 

 dwindle. The cmved line joining their extremities, whose distance from 

 the base line at the summits of the vertical lines thus joined would 

 show the varying yield of milk from week to week throughout the year, 

 would commence at once, perhaps some time in March, at a maximum 

 height, representing possibly a produce of twenty, or two dozen gallons 

 weekly : it would maintain a nearly level course till after Midsummer, 

 and, gradually dwindling through the autumn, it would touch the base 

 line, indicating an entire cessation of produce towards the end of the 



