French Experimental Farm at Vaujoura. 
309 
rapo-cako ripened well ; that with farmyard-manures less well ; 
those dressed with scwajje were worst in this respect. After 
an unsatisfactory harvest the crop was tied and weighed, Septem- 
ber 19th. No account was kept of the produce of grain. The 
weight of straw and grain together was as follows : — 
Ton?, cwts. 
Plot 1. Yard manTiro 1 'I'i per acre, 
„ 2. Sewage 1 2] „ 
„ 3. Rape-cake 0 16 „ 
„ 4. Xothing 0 9 „ 
It is needless to criticise these results. Moderate, rational, 
3ind seasonable manuring can alone furnish a good practical 
lesson ; but incidentally we owe to this record a useful analysis 
of a peculiar sort of manure. 
The Effects of a Manure, contrasted with the Manurial Effects 
jirodiiced hij the Food and Litter lohich are consumed to furnish 
such Manure, 
The next experiment recorded was also rather serviceable in 
■design, than successful in the event. 
The manager thus explains his motives for instituting this com- 
parison : " It has been said that stock does not so much make, 
as consume manure, and common sense shows that the animal 
cannot live, grow, or fatten but by retaining and assimilating a 
portion of the food which it devours ; and yet, whenever these 
constituents of manure have been applied to the soil instead of 
the manure itself, less produce has been reaped than would have 
been looked for if the substances employed had passed through, 
the animal economy. This seems to be a paradox ; but may we 
not suppose that if, on the one hand, these substances have 
parted with some of their fertilising elements, on the other hand 
they have been so affected by the digestive process that when 
uhey have been piled up in heaps, or buried in the soil, they act 
powerfully on the atmospheric gases, absorbing, condensing, and 
assimilating these sources of fertility, — in short, playing the part 
of natural nitre-beds, with greater efficacy than they could have 
done in their primary state? At all events, this is an open 
question. Theory appears to be at variance with fact, whilst 
reputed facts have not been watched with the care and exactitude 
required for their establishment as conclusive." 
The following experiment was therefore undertaken with a 
view to supplying this apparent defect. Two plots (5 and 6), 
adjacent to the four referred to in tbe last experiment, were 
manured : the latter. No. 6, with 60 tons of manure ; and No. 
5 with 8 tons of hay and 2 tons 16 cwt. of straw per acre. 
These 10 tons 16 cwt. of food and litter would, in fact, have 
made 2^ times that amount of manure, or 24 tons 6 cwt. But 
