Classification of the Fossiliferous Rocks. 171 
marl, and gravel as the subsoil. It had been hard worked for a 
“hundred years ; but except a thorough ploughing, no other means 
were taken to improve it, not a particle of manure was supplied. 
Wheat was then sown ih single grains, three inches apart, and in 
rows a foot apart, a space of three feet being left quite bare between 
each three rows, and this was continued in alternate stripes all 
across the field. The sowing took place at the beginning of autumn ; 
and in November, when the plant rows began to shaw, all the inter- 
vening three feet spaces were trenched by the spade, and six inches 
_of the subsoil made to change places with the surface. <‘‘ In the 
spring,” says the reverend agriculturist, ‘‘ I well hoed and hand- 
weeded the rows of wheat, and stirred the intervals with a one horse 
scarifier three or four times, up to the very period of flowering in 
June.” The croplooked thin and miserable until after April, when 
it began “to mat and tiller,’ it did not turn yellow in May, and 
the stalk grew so stout and strong as to bear up well against the 
storm. When harvested, the result was highly gratifying, for the 
yield amounted to from thirty-six to forty bushels per acre, or rather 
per half acre, seeing that as the alternate strips were left bare, only 
one half of the field was really planted. The quantity of seed used 
per half acre was a little more than a peck. 
Adjoining the field in which these experiments were carried on, 
was another which had four ploughings, ten tons of manure, six or 
seven times as much seed, and yet it gave quarter less to the acre. 
. This might be looked on as an accident, were it not that Mr 
Smith has repeated his experiments year after year, and always with 
greater success. He believes that if all the conditions be literally 
fulfilled, the same favourable result may invariably be obtained. No 
manure whatever is to be used; and in the second year, the strip 
is to be sown which was left bans in the first ; and so on, changing 
from one to the other, year after year. (American Annual of Scien- 
tific Discoveries, for 1854, p. 276.) 
Classification of the Fossiliferous Rocks. 
If the leading geologists of our country do not soon agree on a 
fixed nomenclature for the classification of the fossiliferous rocks, 
the cultivators and admirers of the science cannot fail to be misled, 
which will terminate in a great deal of false information being pro- 
pagated. We want a classification that will apply to the whole 
globe—a classification arrived at by all the best judges, from physi- 
cal, chemical, and palzontological geological facts; not a series of 
geological fubtis from any single geographical region, but a classi- 
fication based on information from all the best described portions of 
our globe we are now in possession of. 
