Some of the Agricultural Lessons o/* 18G8. 
37 
turnips, mustard, rape, and other catch crops coukl be got on 
the stubliles after harvest, were almost the sole provision of green 
food for the winter keep of stock. The regular turnip break of all 
light land farms was last year a blank. In North Wilts the compe- 
tition for Mr. Sotheron Estcourt's prize of 25/. for the best five 
acres of Swedish turnips, grown with artificial manure alone, 
realised an average crop of only y| tons per acre, the weight on 
the unmanurod acres averaging only 5 tons 8 cwts. The cost of 
the artificial manure employed averaged 1/. 15s. 6(Z. per acre ; so 
that in the nine instances reported by Mr. William Spearing, 
to whom the award of the premium had been left, an extra pro- 
duce of 39 tons of roots was obtained on the 9 acres whose crop 
was ascertained, by the use of 16/. worth of artificial fertilisers. 
The swedes thus grown cost 8s. 3f/. a ton in manure alone, a fact 
quite enough to prove that on all light soils, such as those reported 
on by Mr. Spearing, succulent growth by the aid of dry manure 
is unprofitable in such a dry season as we had last year. On 
heavy lands, again, the superiority exhibited in the case of all 
early sown crops, which had already obtained complete root- 
hold of the soil and subsoil before the drought began, entirely 
disappeared wherever the seed-bed was not completely ready 
before the end of May ; and all attempts to obtain a crop of 
swedes and turnips on such soils last year were failures. It is 
perhaps hardly necessary that I should quote the letters of corre- 
spondents on the subject. It will suffice if the words of Mr. 
Lawes, in his article on " Home Produce " in the last volume of 
the 'Journal,' be referred to in confirmation of the account thus 
given of the crops of 1868.* 
Land Drainage and Steam Tillage. 
On these subjects, and their relations to the drought of 1868, 
the following questions were distributed : — 
On Land Drainage : — Are there instances known to you of differences, 
as regards productiveness during so dry a season, between drained and 
undraLned laud, eitlier arable or pasture ? If so, please to give a particular 
history of them. 
On Steam Cultivation: — Has deeply stirred and steam cultivated land 
suffered more or less than others from the drought ? Describe any instances 
in detail. 
It is plain that it is through their influence on the depth and 
thoroughness of tilth that both land drainage and steam cultiva ■ 
tion influence fertility : and the answers to these questions may, 
therefore, be properly considered and arranged together. It is 
* See Table opposite p. 362, vol. iv.. New Series. 
