150 Report of Experiments on the Growth of Barley, 
less with farmyard-manure, and with mineral manure and nitrate 
of soda, than with mineral manure and ammonia-salts. In 1870 
it was also considerably less with mineral manure and rape-cake. 
The proportion of corn to straw was, under all conditions of 
manuring, very high, and under some higher than in any other 
year of the twenty. It was the highest, indeed very unusually 
high, with farmyard-manure, with ra>pe-cake, and with mixed 
mineral manure and nitrate of soda. The only years approaching 
1870 in proportion of corn to straw were 1857 and 1865, both 
of which had, however, considerably the advantage in actual 
quantity of corn per acre. The quality of the grain, as indicated 
by the weight per bushel, was throughout considerably higher 
than the average, and under some of the most liberal conditions 
of manuring it was as high as, or higher than, in any other year. 
Thus, with a drought of extraordinary severity, extending 
through the whole period of active growth and ripening, accom- 
panied for the most part with higher temperatures than usual, and 
a very dry atmosphere, the experimental wheat-field gave con- 
"Siderably less straw, but with high artificial manuring considerably 
more corn, than the average, and grain of very high quality. 
The spring-sown barley, on the other hand, gave a crop deficient 
in both straw and corn ; very deficient in straw, and very deficient 
in corn also with defective manuring, though much less so with 
high manuring ; and, like the wheat, it gave grain of very high 
quality. The greater power of the winter-sown crop to withstand 
spring and summer drought and heat, provided the subsoil be 
moderately retentive, is here again illustrated. 
Compared with 1868, which was considerably hotter during 
May, June, and July, but not deficient in rain in April or 
August as well as the intermediate months as was 1870, the 
experimental wheat-field gave, in 1870, very much less straw 
than in 1868, but under liberal artificial manuring about, or 
nearly, as much corn. The experimental barley-field, on the 
other hand, gave under some conditions of manuring more, but, 
upon the whole, less straw, though, under high manuring, more 
corn in 1870 than in I8G8. In fact, owing to the greater heat, 
the soil was probably deprived of its moisture to a greater 
degree by the shorter drought of 1808 than by the longer one 
of 1870, and hence the less productiveness of the spring-sown 
crop in the former than in the latter year. 
When speaking of the crop of 1868, attention was called to 
the fact that the farmyard-manure plot, and the one receiving 
mixed mineral manure and nitrate of soda, suffered much less 
from the drought than that receiving mixed mineral manure and 
ammonia salts. In 1870 the general character of the results 
was, as already intimated, very similar. Under each of the 
