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111. — Rp.port of Experiments on the Growth of Bar lei/ for Twenty 
Years in succession on the same Land. By J, B. Lawes, Esq., 
F.R.S., F.C.S. ; and J. H. Giluert, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S. 
In volumes viii. xli. and xvi. of the first series of this Journal, 
we gave some account of experiments on the growth of Wheat 
year after year on the same land; in volume xxv. (1864), we 
published a detailed Report on the growth of the crop, without 
manure, and with different descriptions of manure, for twenty 
years in succession on the same land ; and the twenty-ninth crop 
has now been harvested. In volume xviii. (1857), results on the 
growth of Barley, under somewhat similar conditions of manur- 
ing, for six years in succession on the same land, were given. 
Those experiments have been continued up to the present time, 
and are still in progress ; and we are now enabled to record the 
results obtained with barley, as already with wheat, over twenty 
consecutive seasons. 
Barley is, at any rate through the greater part of England, if 
not throughout Scotland and Ireland, the second in importance of 
the cereal grains we cultivate ; in some localities, indeed, it is of 
first importance. It is a prominent element in the well-known 
four-course rotation, and is more or less prominent in almost every 
rotation throughout the greater part of the British Isles. More- 
over, it is supposed that the characters and the condition of land 
under which it can be advantageously cultivated are greatly 
limited, and that its market value is much influenced, by certain 
fiscal arrangements. From various points of view, therefore, 
exact knowledge of the quantity and quality of the produce it 
yields, on a soil of a given description, but under a great variety 
of well-defined conditions as to manuring, and in seasons of very 
various characters, cannot fail to be of great practical interest. 
The conditions of growth of barley, are, in some respects, very 
similar to those of wheat ; but in others they are very different. 
Thus, as a rule, wheat is sown in the autumn, but barley not 
until the spring ; and it has, therefore, much less time for the 
distribution of its roots, and for getting possession of the stores 
within the soil. Again, the descriptions of soil which are the 
most suitable for the growth of wheat, are generally not equally 
well adapted for the growth of barley. Hence, apart from the 
importance attaching to the barley-crop as a prominent and inde- 
pendent element in most of our rotations, the question of the 
degree in which the requirements and results of its growth are 
similar to, or different from, those of its botanical ally — wheat 
(both belonging to the same natural family, the Graminacece), is 
one of very considerable interest, both practical and scientific. 
