Cultivation by Deep- rooting Plants. 



319 



the price of lambs this year would have risen rather than 

 fallen. 



" I now pass to an experiment with potatoes in the case of 

 the Haugh field of 27 acres — a shingley spotted haugh on 

 the banks of the Bowmont — which in our early experience 

 ot the farm always suffered extremely from drought. It was 

 laid down in 1893 with one of my mixtures, containing 

 chicory, burnet, etc., and was ploughed up at the clcse ot 

 last year, and partly sown with potatoes and partly with 

 turnips. The former, which were manured with dung and 

 kainit, at an estimated cost of £2 10s. an acre, gave 15 tons 

 per acre. The turnips which had no manure gave 14 tons 

 6 cwts. Estimating the potatoes at £2 per ton, the result 

 was £ 1 2S. in favour of the unmanured portion. 



" Alongside of the unmanured potatoes a drill of un- 

 manured turnips had been left, the rest of the turnips 

 having been manured with basic slag, nitrate of soda, and 

 sulphate of potash. Both brairded equally well. No 

 difference could be perceived between the manured and 

 unmanured turnips on the 7th of September by Dr. Voelcker 

 (Chemist for the Royal Agricultural Society of England), 

 though the drill was under a disadvantage, owing to being 

 next to the unmanured potatoes. There now seems to me to 

 be a difference in favour of the manured turnips, but the 

 experiment was too limited to be satisfactory, and another 

 experiment w T ill be made next year. The turnips generally 

 are a good crop, and in parts a very good crop, owing to the 

 decaying" turf. 



" From the results obtained from the system of farming at 

 Clifton-on-Bowmont, it is evident that we can, if we choose, 

 ultimately arrive at the ideal agriculture, where fertility can 

 be continuously increased and fair average crops grown 

 without any fertilisers being purchased. Should these be 

 bought, as they might often be, in small degree and with 

 profitable results, the gain will be certain, because the profits 

 on purchased manures will no longer, as at present, be so 

 largely dependent on the season for, as I have shown on 

 my farm, fair crops of all kinds may always be grown in any 

 .season, whether it should be over wet or dry, if the land is well 



