1922.] 



( rBBBN Mam RING 



107 



vestigation before the practice can be recommended for general 

 adoption. As to the use of artificial farmyard manure made 

 from straw, there seems to be little doubt that this material 

 will prove a valuable manure, and provided its production on a 

 large scale can be made economically practicable, it will doubt- 

 less ultimately find a large application in agriculture. Both of 

 these methods, however, apply pre-eminently to those farms 

 where straw is available in sufficient quantity on the spot, and 

 in a less degree in cases where the straw would need to be 

 brought in. The object of this article is to call special attention 

 to the third method mentioned above, namely, green -manuring. 

 In doing so it must be clearly understood that it is as a means 

 of supplementing a dwindling supply of animal manure, and 

 not necessarily as a competitor with animal manure, that green 

 manures are here treated. It is often urged that it is a far 

 more practical proposition to feed a green crop to sheep folded 

 on the land than to plough it in, and on light lands this is no 

 doubt usually the case, but on heavy lands on which sheep can- 

 not be folded, and even on light lands, if sufficient sheep are 

 not available, green manuring merits serious consideration by 

 the arable farmer who does not feed enough stock off the land 

 to supply his requirements of animal manure. 



Existing Green-Manuring Practice in this Country. — I - 



farmers neglect a favourable opportunity of taking a catch crop 

 of a quick-growing nature, such as mustard, between harvest 

 and seed-time, or on a freshly ploughed seeds ley, and turning 

 it in if it is not convenient or practicable to fold sheep on the 

 land or to feed cattle off the land; and to this extent green 

 manuring may be said to be fairly general in this country, but 

 in most districts it cannot be said to play more than a very 

 minor part. The difficulty in ordinary farming is that in any 

 of the usual rotations, after doing the necessary amount of 

 cultivation to keep the land clean it is often too late to get in a 

 green manure crop with any hope of its making sufficient 

 growth before next seed-time. In a normal four-course system 

 of seeds, wheat, roots, barley, the land is seldom available until 

 August, and in a late season it may well be a month later 

 before the harvest is in. Although nowadays the tractor has 

 made it possible to finish the ploughing of stubbles and cultiva- 

 tion for weed-killing in a much shorter time than formerly, in 

 a late season the interval available is usually too short for taking 

 a catch crop. Another factor which adds to the difficulty is the 



