6J2 



Improvement of Poor Pasture. 



[FEB., 



5 per cent, to a complete failure, and averaged probably 50 to 

 60 per cent. Investigations that were made by Drs. Schleh and 

 Spiekermann showed that there was no special cause of disease 

 in this case, the failure being regarded as partly due to the 

 meteorological conditions of 1904 and partly to a certain de- 

 generation in the Magnum-Bonum. The summer of 1904, it 

 may be remembered, was remarkable for the lack of rain which 

 was experienced in July and August,* but if the failure of this 

 crop is to be attributed solely to the unfavourable conditions to 

 which the seed-potatoes were exposed, other varieties would 

 presumably have been affected in like manner, but this does not 

 seem to have been the case. Moreover, in several instances 

 where Magnum-Bonum seed was purchased from another dis- 

 trict, a successful crop was obtained, even where home-grown 

 seed was a complete failure. 



A number of other instances of failure were reported in other 

 parts of Germany, the cause of which may, in all probability, be 

 attributed to the continual use of home-grown seed, or of seed 

 of the same variety grown in the district. 



An experiment in the improvement of poor pasture in Ayr- 

 shire, extending over six years, from 1899 to 1904, has recently 

 been brought to a close, and it is interest- 

 Improvement ing to observe that so far as comparison is 

 Poor Pasture possible with the results obtained in some- 

 what similar experiments at -Cockle Park, 

 at Sevington in Hampshire, and Cransley in Northamptonshire, 

 the lessons are precisely the same,f but in reporting on the 

 experiment in question Professor Wright, of the West of Scot- 

 land Agricultural College, draws attention to several other points 

 of considerable practical value. 



Soil. — The area occupied oy the experiment amounted to 

 fifteen acres, divided into five plots. It had been in pasture for 

 about eighty years, during which period no manures had been 



* See article on " Weather and Crops in Europe in 1904," J on pia/, Vol. XL, p. 479, 

 Nov., 1904. 



t Journal, Vol. V., p. 300, Dec, T898 ; Vol. VI., p. 293, Dec., 1899 ; Vol. VII., 

 p. 311, Dec, 1900, Vol. XI., p. 414, Oct.j 1904; Vol. XI., p. 608, Jan., 1905. 



