Local Agricultural Societies. 
291 
The main field experiment was one upon wheat, following' 
rotation seeds, the object being to find what, in the absence of 
farmyard manure, wonld be the most suitable dressing to apply 
for wheat. This would meet, it was hoped, the case of entering 
on a new occupancy, or of not having a sufficient supply of dung. 
Whitlingham, Cawston, and Flitcham were the places where 
the experiment was carried out. The soils have been described 
in previous reports : at Whitlingham it is light and open, about 
nine inches of topsoil, with subsoil of brick-earth and clay ; at 
Cawston it is five to six inches poor light surface land on sandy 
subsoil ; and at Flitcham a very thin, light, and hungry topsoil 
resting on chalk. 
Barley in each case preceded the seeds, which were sown 
among it, and not manured themselves before the wheat. The 
autumn sowings of sulphate of ammonia took place the end of 
September or beginning of October; the spring top-dressings 
of this and nitrate of soda the first week of April. All other 
manures were applied in September or October. The results 
are given in Table II. on page 292. 
At Whitlingham the unmanured produce was on the average 
23 bushels per acre, and even with the many kinds of artificials 
employed no greater increase than 4 bushels could be obtained 
— the best result being due to 4 cwts. of rape-cake in autumn 
and 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda in spring, the cost being about 26s. 
per acre. 
The season was all against reliance on artificial manures 
alone, and, as seen from plot 13, a heavy dressing of dung 
used with artificials gave a much increased yield, though dung 
alone (plot 15) unaided by the nitrate of soda did only slightly 
better than the artificials. 
The Flitcham results are much of the same character, with 
the exception of plots 4 and 5, on which 1 cwt. of muriate of 
potash was sown in autumn in addition to rape-cake. 
Mr. Cooke writes of the appearance of these two plots by 
comparison with the others as being quite magical, and having 
inspected them myself, I also can speak to the very striking 
differences produced, and which on the facts and figures one 
cannot help attributing to the effect of the muriate of potash 
applied. Anyhow, the crops on these plots stood erect while all 
others lay nearly flat down, and they yielded fairly in comparison 
with the ordinary farming (plot 13), which included the use of 
ten loads of dung, as well as muriate of potash and nitrate of 
soda (I cwt. each). Of the other plots the best was, as at 
Whitlingham, plot 9 (4 cwts. rape-cake in autumn, and 1 cwt. 
nitrate of soda in spring). 
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