TEE 



AORICULT 



URAL JOURNAL. 



533 



Now for a few figures. The average 

 production of wheat per acre, 1 think, for 

 the year 1895, given in bushels, was — 

 India 10, Argentina 11, United States 13, 

 France 17, Great Britain 28, Russia 8, 

 Australasia 6, whole world 12. The 

 average production in the same year for 

 the county of Herts was — Wheat 2*3 and 

 a fraction bushels, barley 29 and a frac- 

 tion bushels, oats 35 and a fraction 

 bushels ; and for the county of Lincoln- 

 shire, perhaps the most fertile in England, 

 wheat 32 and a fraction bushels, barley 



35 and a fraction bushels, oats 51 and a 

 fraction bushels. On Blount's Farm in 

 1895 the return was as follows : — Wheat 



36 bushels, barley 40 bushels, oats 40 

 bushels, and beans 32 bushels. These 

 figures speak for themselves. 



It may be thought, however, that they 

 refer to an exceptional year. That this 

 is not so is shown by the fact that the 

 average production of wheat on Blount's 

 Farm, taken over a period of seventeen 

 years, has been four-and-a-half quarters 

 or thirty-six bushels per acre, and of 

 barley five quarters or forty bushels per 

 acre. 



How IT IS Done. 



The analysis of the clay lands at 

 Blount's Farm showed its cultivators that 

 it contained all the elements necessary to 

 the growth of cereals, a sufficiency of 

 phosphates and ammonia alone excepted. 

 Their object, therefore, has been to supply 

 these elements in just sufficient quantities 

 to satisfy the needs of the growing crop, 

 but no more. 



By this I mean that after the removal 

 of the crop land dressed thus scientifically 

 should— and, as a matter of fact, on 

 Blount's Farm does — show absolutely no 

 loss of those constituent parts which are 

 necessary to fertility, the main minerals, 

 such as lime, potash, and soda, being, of 

 course, as in most clays, present in this 

 soil in quantities so large that it would 

 take centuries of cultivation to exhaust 

 them. To supply what is lacking if the 

 crop to be grown is wheat, Mr. Front 

 doses the land by means of a manure dis- 

 tributor with 4 cwt. of mineral super- 

 phosphate per acre, which in this case 

 would be applied in the month of Jan- 

 uary, or about three months after sowing, 

 and cwt. of nitrate of soda per acre ap- 

 plied about the middle of April. It must 



be remembered, however, that these 

 chemicals are absolutely necessary to 

 each other ; thus it would be practically 

 useless to apply the superphosphates with- 

 out following them up with the nitrate, 

 or the nitrate unless it had l^een preceded 

 by the superphosphates. Of this fact we 

 saw by good fortune a very striking ex- 

 ample on the occasion of our visit. 



In one of the wheat fields the man em- 

 ployed upon the task had by accident 

 missed a strip when giving the nitrate 

 dressing, although this strip, in common 

 with the rest of the field, had received 

 the full allowance of mineral superphos- 

 phates. There before our eyes was the 

 result. On either side the corn grew 

 stout and green, whereas along the line of 

 this defrauded strip it was yellow, back- 

 ward, and short in straw. Probably there 

 will be a difference of five bushels to the 

 acre between the yield of this portion and 

 of the rest of the piece. 



The other points about Mr. Front's 

 system are that he steeps all his seed- 

 wheat for an hour or two upon the day 

 before it is drilled in a solution of blue 

 stone, a precaution which he finds quite 

 effective against the disease known as 

 " smut," and that he invariably makes use 

 of the steam plough, thereby saving time 

 and money and ensuring thorough culti- 

 vation of the land. Almost before the 

 crops are off the field the steam plough is 

 at woi'k in them, with the result that it is 

 no unusual thing for him to begin drilling 

 his wheat about September 20th. and to 

 finish it before the end of October ; that 

 is, at the season which nature appointed, 

 when, too, in our climate it is almost 

 always possible to get upon the land. 

 With wire-worm, which the use of arti- 

 ficials is vulgarly supposed to produce, he 

 has not been troubled for years, rolling 

 and the application of nitrate having been 

 quite sufficient to keep it down. 



Facts and Figures. 

 We visited every field on Blount's 

 Farm, and as a sample I will transcribe 

 the notes taken concerning two or three 

 of them. I should add that, speaking 

 generally, although they varied somewhat 

 in appearance, according to the condition 

 and tilth of the land when they were got 

 in, the appearance of the crops, including 

 the beans and clover, was extraordinarily 

 good even in this season of drought, some 



