32o Cultivation by Deep-rooting Plants. 



supplied with decaying- vegetable matter derived from deep- 

 rooting* plants which will at once till, aerate, and manure 

 the soil to the lowest depth that tap-rooted plants can 

 descend. I have emphasized in small degree because,, 

 when the soil is fully permeated with vegetable matter 

 in various stages of decay, and is thus readily accessible to 

 roots in all its parts, a small application of manure will be 

 as effectual as a larger application would be in the case of a 

 soil in physical condition. 



" When then the physical conditions are good you can not 

 only defy the season, but economise manurial applications, 

 and avert the waste that at present occurs from more avail- 

 able manure being put down than suffices for the immediate, 

 requirements of the plants. The manure applied in excess 

 of these requirements is liable, I need hardly say, to loss 

 from wash, and from entering into insoluble compounds in 

 the soil." 



Let us now contrast these results with some of those given 

 in the work carried on through the Durham College of 

 Science, Newcastle-on-Tyne. I am indebted to the kindness 

 of Professor T. H. Middleton, head of the Agricultural 

 Department of the College, for the report for the season 1901, 

 and for Circulars Nos, 16 and 17, the first giving an account 

 of turnip experiments on six farms in 1900 and the second of 

 the sheep-feeding* experiments. These circulars are most 

 admirably drawn up, with diagrams showing the compara- 

 tive size and yield of turnips grown with and without 

 man are, and also the comparative sizes of the sheep grown 

 on manured and unmanured land, and with and without 

 artificial food. The first circular ia most instructive, and 

 contains painful proofs of that deplorably exhausted condi- 

 tion of our soil to which I have previously alluded. The 

 reader will remember that no difference could be perceived 

 by Dr. Voelcker on Sept. 7 between our unmanured turnips 

 and those manured with a complete fertiliser, />., nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid, and potash, and even now the difference in 

 favour of the manured turnips seems trifling*. But of the six 

 farms referred to in the Durham College circular three 

 show on the complete manure-plot about double the pro- 



