Cultivation by Deep-rooting Plants. 



32r 



duction of the unmanured plot ; on two farms the yield was 

 increased nearly threefold on the manured plot, and 

 on one the increase was about sevenfold, while one farm 

 produced i-3oth of a ton on the no " manure plot," against 

 i6f tons per acre on the plot dressed with a complete manure. 

 But from the results we have obtained at Clifton-on- 

 Bowmont it is evident that had the tests been made on my 

 land the difference in favour of the manured plots would have 

 been so slight that it certainly would not have paid for the 

 cost of the manure — 48s. per acre — used in the College 

 experiments. 



On turning to Circular No. 1 7 we shall find a repetition of 

 the same experimental procedure, the standard worked from 

 being described as poor pasture land, valued at 7s. 6d. an 

 acre. The sheep fed on this land presents in the diagram a 

 melancholy appearance as compared with the portly figures 

 of his neighbours in the other diagrams, which represent 

 the results on the sheep from feeding on the pasture dressed 

 with various manurial mixtures costing from 22s. to 36s. 4d- 

 per acre, and in one instance feeding with oilcakes. 



But what would have been the result of the comparison 

 had the sheep on the "no manure" plot been fed on 

 pasture raised on previously well-fed soil, and supplied with 

 the fattening chicory, the health-conserving burnet and 

 yarrow, the kidney vetch, clovers, and deeply-rooting- nutri- 

 tious grasses like those used on my farm. If that standard 

 — if that sound foundation — had been built on, the compara- 

 tive profit from dressing the land with various manurial 

 preparations could have been ascertained ; and it is obvious 

 that it could have been ascertained in no other way. 



If we turn next to the experiments on the influence oi 

 artificial manures on the yield of seed hay, we shall find the 

 "no manure" plots with a production of 35jcwt. to 44jcwt., 

 rising, with the aid of artificials costing 3s. an acre, to 

 62 and 63 J cwt. But the " no manure" plots ought to have 

 started with a production of 60 cwt. had the plots been on my 

 land, for we have more than once produced three tons an acre 

 on land that had nothing in the shape of artificials or any 

 other manure to stimulate the yield of the hay crop, and we 



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