On the Nitrate of Soda. 



125 



reaped within a few days of the time that the earlier-sown corn was 

 reaped. The straw was abundant, and one fichl produced 42 stooks 

 per acre, and the other 45 stooks per acre. It is e||imated that they 

 would both yield about the same quantity of grain, viz., about 37 or 38 

 bushels per acre ; the straw in one field being coarser and taking up 

 more room than the other. I do not think these fields produced more 

 wheat than my other wheat-fields at Marske ; but then the other fields 

 were in better condition, and had been ploughed with the subsoil- 

 plough, which I believe, on the Marske land, produces a very great 

 efi'ect. The fields sown with nitrate had been heavily cropped, were 

 rather in an exhausted state, and would not have been sown with 

 wheat if it had not been for the convenience of bringing a farm, which 

 I had just taken in hand, into a regular rotation. I believe my wheat- 

 land at Marske produced at least 10 bushels an acre more than the average 

 of my neighbours on the same sort of land. 



I have not tried the nitrate on oats, but Mr. Hart, a very good 

 farmer on the Gisbrough estate, told me that he tried it on one ridge 

 of oats, and that ridge produced three sheaves to two sheaves on the 

 adjoining ridge. Mr. Vansittart tried it on a whole field of oats, 

 which field had grown wheat the preceding year. He had a remark- 

 ably good crop of oats over the whole field, when he had only a right to 

 expect a very moderate one. I have not tried it on any other crops 

 besides wheat and grass this year. Last year I tried it on turnips, and 

 thought it did no good. Mr. Vansittart tried it on turnips this year with 

 dung on strong land, and his opinion is that it did harm to turnips. I 

 cannot give you any account of the weather immediately after sowing 

 the nitrate, as I was not in the country, and Alderson does not recollect 

 that there was anything particular either one way or the other in the 

 weather. 



At Aske I tried it on a very fine meadow-field — a good loamy soil, 

 well drained, with sandy stone and limestone below. Another part of 

 the field was manured with a compost of lime and salt : the result was, 

 in weight of grass — 



24 square yards . . . Nitrate of Soda . . . 136 stone 

 „ ... Lime and Salt . . . 100 ,, 



„ ... Without Manure . . 96 „ 



The above was weighed immediately after it was cut. I believe that 

 lime and salt mixed are of little use, and that, separate, either would have 

 more effect. This does not show so great an increase as was produced 

 here last year, when the weight of grass was more than doubled ; but 

 the land at Aske is much finer and richer land than that on which it 

 was tried here. 



Enclosure alluded to in Lord Zetland's Loiter. 



Some Remarks on the Effects of Nitrate of Soda. — by Mr. John 

 Alderson. 



Nine ridges in a meadow belonging to the Earl of Zetland were sown 

 with nitrate on or about the 1st of August, 1839. Two of the same ridges, 

 with the remaining part of the meadow, were sown with nitrate of soda 



