446 Abstract Report of Ac/ricultural Discussions. 
iiseil s!iif;]y^ Ijiit of 20 tons, yielding each 36 tons — a produce very large in- 
deed lor land which, four years ago, when 1 took it in hand, was taid to be 
incapaLle of growing a turnip.*' 
Sir Edwaed Kerrison, whose cxperimeut led to the same conclu- 
sion, expressed his determination of henceforth using every year 
2 cwts. of guano with 4 cwts. of salt in addition to farmyard manure. 
Possibility of growing Consecutive Crops of Mangold. 
Mr. Holland also referred to a paper which was read before the 
Council of this Society in the year 1852, by Mr. Gaddcsden, giving 
an account of a visit he had paid to a Mr. Reeve, living near Leather- 
head, in Surrey, who had grown mangold without manure for four* 
years, and yet had a very promising crop to show : — ■ 
" The land on which the beet was grown appeared to be of a good and 
useful character, bearing at the time of INIr. Gaddcsden's visit a very pro- 
mising plant of wheat, and was stated to have had no manure uj^on it for 
four years. Mr. Eeeve attributed his success in growing the white Silesian 
beet to his thus not applying manure directly to the crop, and stated that 
when he had dunged for the beet the bullis proved small, had a large mass of 
fuzzy fibres, and gave but a small weight per acre, viz. 15 to 18 tMis; but 
that since he had put his manuring matter further off the beet cro]i, he had 
raised large fine roots of a great weight jier acre. He regarded this circum- 
stance as a discovcrj' in the culture of this jilant, and Mr. Gaddesden con- 
sidered that if Mr. Reeve's calculations were realised it would be so. Mr. 
Gaddesden was shown the field which Mr. Reeve intended to .sow witli 
Silesian beet in that week. The soil was a heavy clay; certainly not from its 
asjiect very promising." 
Mr. Canteell said, that some twenty years ago, when ho occupied 
a faim at Windsor, since held by the late Prince Consort, he was 
induced to try mangold on a field which had not been under cultiva- 
tion for some time previously, and grew them successfully for four 
years in succession, the produce increasing every year. The land 
was lidged up in autumn, and so left in the winter ; in spring a mode- 
rate dressing of dung was ajiplicd, guano and superphosphate being 
then hardly in use. The leaves were removed from the land and 
given to stock. He was not acquainted with the present condition of 
the land. At that time the East Berkshire Agricultiu-al Society had 
a prize for mangold placed at its disposal by Mr. Palmer, late member 
for tlie county. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Cantrell alternately carried off 
the prize. 
Mr. Peel stated, that he had grown good crops of mangold on the 
same land for six years in succession. For the first two or three 
years the roots increased in size ; they then seemed to have reached 
their maximum. In 1861 his neighbourhood had been as much 
oppn seed by wet as that of Mr. Frerc by sunshine. The land was 
const quently less well prepared, and the crop not so good as before. 
The field in question has rather a light soil and a strong subsoil ; it 
had been trenched with a fork two spit deep before the first mangold 
croji was gi-own ; it also had been twice drained. The first draining 
was unsucccf^sful because the sod, which had been inverted over the 
tile at a depth of from 3 to 4 feet, had gi'own so that its roots quite 
