144 Re])ort of Erperivients on the Groicth oj Barley, 
After an unusually wet winter, the soil and subsoil would, 
<loubtless, retain a good deal of moisture at seed-time, and, 
although March was cold and dry, April was warm and forcing. 
May was cold and wet, and June also cold ; so that the cha- 
racters of the season were obviously such as would tend to bulk, 
rather than to seeding tendency. In the case of the barley such 
was the result, but in that of the wheat the straw was propor- 
tionally more deficient than the corn. Again, with barley, there 
was more than average produce, both corn and straw, with mixed 
mineral manure and a given amount of nitrogen, whether sup- 
plied as ammonia-salts or as nitrate of soda ; whereas, with wheat, 
there was a deficiency of both corn and straw with mineral 
manure and ammonia-salts, but an excess of both with the same 
mineral manure and the same amount of nitrogen supplied as 
nitrate of soda. It will be useful to try and trace the explanation 
of these differences. 
It will be remembered that, in the season of drought of 1868, 
the experimental wheat-field gave much more, whilst the experi- 
mental barley-field gave much less, than average produce. In 
1869, however, after a very wet winter, and, for the most part, 
cold weather at the periods of most active growth, the experi- 
mental wheat-field gave generally much less, whilst the barley- 
field yielded considerably more than the average. Doubtless, the 
advantage which the wheat had over the barley in the year of 
drought was due to its having obtained possession of a consider- 
able range of soil before the drought commenced, and being 
thereby rendered less dependent than the spring-sown barley on 
the rain actually falling during the periods of active growth. 
The failure of the wheat as compared with the barley in 1869, 
after the very wet winter, was probably due, in great measure, to 
the washing out and loss by drainage of the nitrogen of the 
ammonia-salts sown in its case in the autumn ; whereas, for 
the barley, the manures were not sown until the spring. A 
corroboration of this view is the fact that, though there was so 
considerable a deficiency in the produce of wheat with mixed 
mineral manure and a given amount of nitrogen supplied in 
the form of ammonia-salts sown in the autumn, there was no 
deficiency, but an excess of produce, of that crop, where the same 
mineral manures and the same amount of nitrogen were supplied, 
but the latter in the form of nitrate of soda, and applied not 
before the winter rains, but in the spring. 
In a paper already referred to,* we have pointed out how very 
serious may be the loss of nitrogen by drainage, when ammonia- 
salts OF nitrates are liberally applied in the autumn, and there is 
* Vol. vii. — s.s. Part I. 
