i9c8.] Summary of Agricultural Experiments. 



705 



SUMMARY OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS * 

 EXPERIMENTS WITH LEGUMINOUS CROPS. 



M a.7111} ing and Inoculation of the Bean Crop ( West of Scotland Agric. 

 Coll., Bull. 42). — Experiments were carried out at the College Station and on 

 nine farms in the south and south-west of Scotland in 1905 and at the 

 Station and five farms in 1906 ; in the first year the experiment was chiefly 

 intended to determine the value of inoculation as a means of supplying the 

 bean crop with nitrogen. In 1906 it was decided to extend the experiment 

 so as to cover more completely the whole subject of the manuring of beans, 

 but the inoculation trials were not repeated. The inoculating material 

 employed was obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 On five of the farms the inoculation proved beneficial, and an average 

 increase of 304 lb. of grain and 3^ cwts. of straw was obtained. On the 

 remainder, however, it proved less effective ; on two farms the returns from 

 treated and untreated seed were approximately the same, on two others there 

 was a moderate reduction in yield of grain, the straw being equal, while at 

 the College Station itself the effects of the inoculation seemed distinctly 

 injurious. This is attributed to the fact that the soil was already rich in 

 organisms such as the culture supplied to the seed, so that inoculation was 

 quite unnecessary, while the treatment may have injuriously affected the 

 germination. Professor Wright, however, in his report on the experiment 

 observes that " apart from that failure, and making due allowance for the 

 discrepancies inseparable from field experiments, the results on the whole 

 tend to show that, under suitable conditions and on ordinary bean soils, the 

 practice of inoculation appears likely to be beneficial and profitable." 



Besides the inoculation experiments, trials with various manures were 

 carried out in both years, but it is considered that any final conclusions to be 

 drawn from the results must be deferred until the trials have been continued 

 over a number of years. So far as they have gone, however, they suggest 

 that the bean crop is in a great degree independent of special manuring and 

 is capable of producing fair crops without any manures being applied to it at 

 all. It does, indeed, respond in some measure to the application of manures, 

 but it seems very doubtful, on the average of years, whether the amount of 

 increase obtained will leave a satisfactory margin of profit. 



Beans, Change of Seed {Beds. C.C. Rept. on Demonstration Plots, 1907). — 

 This experiment was intended to test the effect of seed obtained from coun- 

 ties other than Bedfordshire. The best results were obtained from Red 

 Spring beans, seed from Essex and Suffolk taking the second and third places. 



Manuring of Picking Peas {Essex Editc. Com. Field E.vpts., 1906). — 

 The object of this experiment was to ascertain if equally good results could 

 be obtained from a dressing of artificials as from a dressing of London dung, 

 which entails heavy cartage expenditure. Very similar results were obtained 

 from each of the following dressings : — (1) 15 tons London dung ; {2) 10 tons 

 London dung ; and (3) 5 cwts. superphosphate, 5 cwts. kainit, and 1 cwt. 

 nitrate of soda. The application of 5 cwts. basic slag and 5 cwts/ kainit 

 gave a much diminished yield, and it is considered probable that this was 

 largely due to the substitution of basic slag for superphosphate, with the 

 consequent difference in the supply of readily available phosphate. 



* See Expeiiments with Cereals, September, 1908, p. 458 ; Experiments with 

 Root Crops, October, 1908, p. 536 ; Experiments with Potatoes, November, 1908, 

 p. 621. 



