594 On the Valuation of Unexhausted Manures. 
xMr. Randell's motion, of corroborating or modifjing Mr. Lawes' 
conclusions as to the manurial value of cakes and feeding-stuffs 
should be carried on for several years, it appears to the Com- 
mittee that, pending the completion of such experiments — should 
they be carried out — it is desirable for the Society to draw up 
and publish, with the assistance of Mr. Lawes and Dr. Voelcker, 
a schedule of the manurial value of these substances, based upon 
Mr. Lawes' Tables, and on any other evidence that may come 
under their consideration." 
The liberal offer of the Duke of Bedford, referred to in the 
above report, to furnish the necessar\" land, and the funds required 
to carry out an investigation in regard to the manure-value 
of consumed cattle-foods, and other points, having been accepted, 
a series of experiments was at once arranged, and commenced 
as soon as possible, and they are still in progress. It would not 
be appropriate on the present occasion to enter into the con- 
sideration of the important additions to our knowledge which 
have accrued from those experiments. Nor need we here refer 
to the fact that the manure from cattle-foods of such widely 
different manure-value as decorticated cotton-cake and maize 
should have shown very little difference in the crops to which 
they were applied, any further than to say that the result was 
doubtless due to the condition of the land being, in both cases, 
high enough to yield approximately maximum crops. 
It is doubtless the certainty that the Duke of Richmond's 
Act would be followed by one securing to the tenant compensa- 
tion for his unexhausted improvements, that has led the culti- 
vators of the soil to pay much more attention in recent years to 
the comparative value of the manure from the consumption of 
different descriptions of cattle-food ; and it is remarkable that, 
coincidently with the results obtained at Woburn, which do not 
establish the superiority of the manure from decorticated cotton- 
cake over that from maize, it has become almost universally 
recognised by farmers that the manure from the consumption of 
the cakes in ordinary use has a higher value than that from the 
cereal grains. 
It is true that when Chambers of Agriculture, or Farmers' 
Clubs, have agreed upon a basis for compensation in amicable 
arrangements, they have generally preferred to fix the scale in 
proportion to the cost of the food, rather than to its manure- 
value. They have, however, in the case of cakes, and even of 
the leguminous seeds, assigned a larger proportion of their cost 
as compensation than in that of the cereal grains. Thus, the 
fact that foods rich in nitrofjon vield manures of higher value 
than those which are po;ir in that substance, is fully recognised. 
