( 27G ) 
X. — On Nitrate of Soda. By W. Clarke. ' 
To T. D. Acland, Esq., M.P. 
My dear Sir, — The nitrate of soda which I tried last year was as 
under: — The field was manured all over alike on a clover ley sown with 
wheat, in the month of November, 1841 ; on the 1th of April, 1842, I 
marked out 120 poles running from one end of the field to the other, 
leaving 54^ poles thus in the middle of the field : — 
60 poles nitrate of soda. 
54^ poles without. 
60 poles nitrate of soda. 
The wheat on the 120 poles sown with i cwt. of soda soon showed 
itself much stronger in plant and colour. The land is what we call 
stone-rush, situation rather high, aspect good. At harvest I was parti- 
cular in keeping it separate, the more so on account of the conflicting 
opinions I read in the Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society on the 
subject. On the ITth of December last I threshed and winnowed up 
the two lots, and the result was, 120 poles produced 28 bushels, and 
the 54 J poles produced 11^ bushels, or just 4;^^ bushels per acre more 
with soda. 
£. s. d. 
4t\ bushels wheat, at Ci. ...156 
^ cwt. nitrate of soda . . . . 0 15 0 
Profit . . . 0 10 6 
Besides a little more straw, which will make a little more manure for 
next crop j and again, wheat is now very low. 
I am, &c. 
W. Clarke. 
East Lynch, near Minehead, Somerset, 
Jan. 13, 1843. 
XI. — Account of the Effect of a Bituminous Shale at Clirislian 
Malford, JVilti: By Robert Goaven. 
Having been requested to give some account of the bituminous shale, 
the fertilising qualities of which attracted my notice some years ago at 
Christian Malford, an estate belonging to the Earl of Carnarvon, near 
Chippenham, in Wiltshire, and situate in the valley of the Avon, — I 
have to state that I was at that time the auditor of the property, and had 
directed the deepening of an ancient watercourse, called Pug Ditch, 
which runs through the parish. The labourers, being engaged on a 
portion of the watercourse where the soil rests upon a substratum of 
gravel, the rubble of the neighbouring coral rag, cut through a number 
of highly-inclined out-croppings of dark-coloured shale, belonging to the 
