Experimental Crops at Rothamsled. 
Ill 
than the dung, shows loss moisturo within the first 9 inches, and 
but little more within the next, or fourth 3 inches, than that of 
the dunged plot ; also a total to that depth considerably less 
than the unmanured soil. From that point, however, there is a 
gradually increasing amount down to the range of the drains; 
notably more than in the dunged soil, and even more than in the 
unmanured, whose crop could only have withdrawn from it about 
-one-third as much. 
Supposing the three plots to have possessed exactly the same 
character of soil and subsoil, and to have contained the same 
«.mount of moisture to a given depth at the time of the com- 
mencement of active growth, we could well understand that, 
when the growth was nearly completed, the subsoil of the 
•dunged plot, growing more than three times the crop, should 
contain less moisture than the unmanured subsoil. But, on the 
same suppositions, it would be difficult to account for the subsoil 
of Plot 8a, which grew even a larger crop than the dung, 
retaining not only more than the subsoil of the dunged plot, but 
more also than that of the unmanured plot. The differences 
between plot and plot as to percentage of moisture are, it is true, 
in some cases not great. But there is too much regularity and 
consistency in the results to admit of the supposition that the 
differences are due to errors arising from the unavoidable diffi- 
culties incident to the collection, weighing, and preparing the 
samples for drying, without some error of experiment affecting 
the estimation of the amount of water. The results relating to 
the soils and subsoils when supposed to be in a state of satura- 
tion will show, indeed, that the active growth of the crops pro- 
bably did not commence with equal soil-supplies of moisture in 
the three cases. 
The unmanured soil, when saturated, contained, to the depth 
•examined, not much less than one-fourth its weight of water, 
and nearly twice as much as in the dry condition. The range 
of variation in the percentage was much less than in the dry 
soil ; but, on the other hand, the order and degree of increase 
or decrease is much less regular in the wet soils. The top 3 
inches contained rather less water than the second and third ; 
otherwise, there would seem to be, at the time of saturation, 
more water near the surface, then a decreasing amount, and then 
a gradually increasing quantity, until the range of the drains is 
reached. 
The dunged soil, with its vast accumulation of organic 
matter, and doubtless greater degree of disintegration, porosity, 
and power of absorption within some distance from the surface, 
is seen to hold about one and a half times as much water within 
the first 6 inches as the unmanured soil, or even as that manured 
