THS AOttI CULTURAL JOURNAL. 



595 



cropped only twice previously. In 1891)- 

 1000 it was in mealies, fertilised with 4 

 cwt. Thomas Phosphate per acre, yielding 

 a crop of 15 muids per acre. In 1898 99, 

 the first year it was cropped, it was sown 

 with winter oats, fertilised with 1 cwt. 

 bone dust per acre, and subsequently with 

 top dressing of about 3| cwt. Kainit per 

 acre. This crop failed entirely owing to 

 rust. 



The land being very poor it is very doubt- 

 ful whether it would ever have given more 

 than 5 or 6 muids of mealies per acre 

 without fertiliser, and judging from other 

 lands of the same class it would only have 

 done this for a year or two, and then have 

 got down to 2 or 3 muids per acre. At 

 any rate this was our experience years 

 ago before we commenced using any arti- 

 ficial fertilisers. 



The heavy crops grown can therefore be 

 taken as solely due to th« use of artifical 

 fertilisers and reasonably good cultivation. 



The very satisfactory return of over 11 

 muids per acre from the plot with no fer- 

 tiliser shows that Thomas Phosphate 

 (being the fertiliser used previous season) 

 must improve the land very considerably 

 for more than one season. This is a point 

 of great interest, as it has been frequently 

 suggested by mealie growers that possibly 

 Thomas Phosphate would leave very little 

 in the land after the current season. In 

 this case it would certainly appear to have 

 improved the land very considerably, in 

 fact it would seem to have had almost as 

 much efEect the second season as the first. 



On the whole Thomas Phosphate is the 

 most profitable of all the fertilisers used 

 in these trials, being the cheapest and 

 giving the best results. 



Plot No. 9 gives the highest yield, but 

 the cost of fertiliser was far more expen- 

 sive than in plot No. 2, where only 

 Thomas' Phosphate was used ; and the 

 latter plot would have given nearly an 

 equal yield if the bad mealies were 

 included. These bad mealies, it must be 

 remembered, do not appear to have been 

 caused by the fertiliser. 



It is rather hard to understand why 

 Muriate of Potash and Sulphate of Am- 

 monia do not produce any results on the 

 yield. Corn crops are usually supposed 

 to require a certain quantity of potash and 

 nitrogen in the fertiliser as well as phos- 

 phoric acid. But on this soil the 



phosphatic fertilisers are the only ones 

 which show any appreciable results. No 

 doubt the good results obtained by using 

 Thomas Phosphate are partly due to the 

 quantity of lime it contains. 



The results from bone dust are very 

 strange — it has not only done no good but 

 has been j^ositively harmful. In previous 

 years bone dust invariably gave good 

 results on our soil, in fact better results 

 than any fertiliser we have ever used, ex- 

 cepting Thomas Phosphate. 



The bone dust used in these trials was 

 imported from Australia, and evidently 

 there was something in it which is de- 

 cidedly harmful, but what it is we cannot 

 find out. It has been analysed, but the 

 analysis does not show anything harmful. 



Plot No. 8, on which bone dust alone 

 was used, looked as if it would be a total 

 failure when the mealies were small; they 

 were yellow and sickly and looked like 

 dying, but recovered as they got older, 

 and eventually gave a fair crop, but not 

 so good as the plot with no fertiliser. 



This cannot be taken as a fair trial of 

 what good bone dust could do, as urt- 

 doubtedly there was something wrong 

 with this particular lot. 



Three years ago we tried bone dust 

 (Colonial) against Thomas Phosphate for 

 mealies., 4 cwt. per acre of each. It was 

 on a piece of land that had been very 

 heavily fertilised for potatoes the previous 

 season. The results were : — For bone 

 dust, 14^ muids mealies per acre ; and for 

 Thomas Phosphate, 15 muids per acre. 

 Showing that there is not much difference 

 between the two when the bone dust is 

 good. 



But, of course, there is a ivery great 

 saving in cost in using Thomas Phos- 

 phate,the present price being about £4 10s. 

 per ton, and bone dust about £7 — when 

 procurable at all. 



Mr. Andeisson, a Swede, has now solved the 

 problems of dairy lectures by ligging out a 

 model dairy, which can be easily carried on a 

 lady's bic cle. The dairy instructress packs up 

 her dairy outfit as follows : — An ordinary ladies' 

 safety bicycle, a small Holstein churn, a sei)arator, 

 cream tin butter worker, milk receiver, Scotch 

 hands and thermomettr, and small hair sieve 

 'I he whole of this weighs, apart from the 

 bic.'cle, 42 lbs., r.nd co'-.ts 45s. Thus the dairy 

 in.'tructress can cycle fnun farm t j larm, teach- 

 ing the latest and must correct priuciples of 

 buiter-making. 



