THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE 



Vol. XXVII. No. 6. 



SEPTEMBER, 1920. 



NOTES FOR THE MONTH. 



It has long been a tradition of farming that two white-straw 

 crops should not be grown in succession, and the tradition still 



_ lives although it is generally known that 



Continuous & & : , . , 



Wheat Growin tnere are numerous- cases in which the 

 practice has been a success. The classical 

 proof that white-straw crops can follow one another without 

 deterioration of the land is afforded by experiments at 

 Hothamsted Experimental Station, where wheat has been 

 grown continuously on the same land for 73 years, with only 

 two seasons' break for fallow, and barley has been grown for 

 63 years with only one season's fallow. In similar experiments at 

 Woburn, on a much lighter soil, forty-four crops of wheat 

 have been taken off the same land without any break, and 

 forty-four crops of barley off the barley plots. As a commercial 

 proposition, wheat was grown almost continuously for 50 years 

 on Mr. Prout's land at Sawbridge worth. Other instances are 

 also known, particularly on chalky boulder clay, where wheat 

 has been grown for a succession of years on the same land, 

 and it may be taken as proved that the practice is quite feasible. 



In the case of the continuous wheat crops at Rothamsted 

 there has, of course, been a falling off on the unmanured land, 

 but this is less than might have been expected; for the last 

 40 years the yield has been fairly steady, and has averaged 

 11J bushels, against 17J bushels for the first five years of the 

 experiment. The plot supplied with farmyard manure shows 

 no falling off, but on the contrary, a rise; for the first eight 

 years the yield averaged 28 bushels, and for the last ten years 

 35 bushels. Except in a few really bad years, such as 1879, 

 1904 and 1912, the crop has been consistently good; while 



(33041) P.6/l!>8. 11,250. 9/20. If . & S. A 



