Cultivation' by Deep-rooting Plants. 



never think of applying any. In fact, I found our hay crop so 

 heavy without any manure that to reduce the ^ank field 

 previously quoted to about 2 tons an acre (it would certainly 

 have given upwards of 3 tons had it not been so treated, and 

 much more had the season been favourable), I grazed the 

 field after harvest and in spring with a heavy stock of ewes 

 and lambs up to the 20th of May. The object of this 

 departure from my usual custom of not grazing previous to 

 haying seeds was to favour the aftermath and subsequent 

 pasture and also to produce fine hay from coarse grasses. 

 The effect of this treatment was most satisfactory as it had 

 the effect of suppressing it so much that there was hardly a 

 single flowering stalk in the hay crop ! From the beautiful 

 dark green colour of the field, many farmers thought it had 

 been manured this year with nitrate, and so it has been, most 

 effectually, but from the decaying vegetable matter of the 

 turf which had been ploughed into the land. 



After observing the effects produced through the agency of 

 the cheapest and best of all manure merchants — the seed mer- 

 chant — it has been suggested to me by a competent observer 

 to give up the use of artificial manures. I have as yet no 

 means of forming a decided opinion on the point, and can only 

 say that in the case of land worked on my system, well 

 furnished with vegetable matter, and opened up and manured 

 to its lowest depth with tap-rooted plants, it has yet to be 

 proved how far the addition of artificial manures will be 

 profitable. In this connection I may point out that the 

 chemist is not enough of a farmer and the farmer not enough 

 of a chemist. 



One word more. We must recognise the fact that the price 

 of agricultural produce has fallen so low, and the cost of 

 production increased so much, that the farmer can no longer 

 afford to pay for the costly assistance of the manure 

 merchants, nor for costly methods of tillage with the aid of 

 machines like the steam cultivator and other mechanical 

 means for deeply cultivating the soil. His only paying- 

 resource is to manure and aerate his land through the cheap 

 agency of tap-rooting plants, which would leave much 

 vegetable matter in the land, and he must, and easily can, 



