346 Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1878. 
after a gentle rain had washed the nitrate into the soil ; and by 
the time the roots on plots 1 and 2 measured scarcely J an inch 
in diameter, those on plot 3 measured fully 1^ inch in diameter. 
Even on plot 4 the 80 lbs. of nitrate of soda produced a marked 
effect on the mangolds, but of course nothing like the effect of the 
248 lbs. which had been applied to the third acre. 
The roots on plot 4 were first taken up, and, in consequence, 
the leaves were greener, and produced a comparatively greater 
weight, than the leaves on plot 1, the roots upon which were 
taken up later. 
It should also be mentioned, that the land on which the 
mangolds were grown was not quite level. On the side far- 
thest from the road-side the ground forms a little hill, the 
highest part of which is in the acre occupied by plot 3, from 
whence it slopes down towards plot 2, turning nearly level 
on plot 1. On plot 3 the roots nearest to the road were much 
bigger than those at the opposite end, on the more elevated 
portion of the field. Plot 1 was the only plot of the four acres 
on which the roots were as large at the end farthest from the 
road as they were at the opposite, or road-side, end. 
If it had not been for these inequalities in the level of the 
four-acre field the produce on plot 3, and, in a minor degree, on 
plots 4 and 2, would no doubt have been somewhat larger. 
It appears from these experiments : 
1. That the cotton-cake dung produced a somewhat heavier 
crop of mangolds than the maize dung. 
2. That the constituents of the dung resulting from the con- 
sumption of either cotton-cake or maize-meal, when supplied 
in the shape of artificial manure, had a better effect on the 
mangold-crop than the dung from these articles of food. 
XIV. — Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1878, 
By Dr. Augustus Voelckee, F.R.S. 
The tabulated summary appended to this Report shows that the 
number of analyses made for the Members of the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society during the period between December 1877 and 
December 1878 has exceeded that of last year by 82, and has 
reached 724, which number has been surpassed only once, and 
then only by G, viz., in 1871. 
Nearly twice as many samples of Peruvian guano as last year 
were sent for analysis in 1878, owing, no doubt, to its variable 
composition. These, witli few exceptions, were found to be 
genuine, but of very variable composition and value. 
