Continuous Corn Growing. 
39 
tuUv the agricultural capabilities of stubborn clays ; have prac- 
tically shown how successfully they may be cultivated ; have 
profitably grown cereals on the same heavy land for several 
c onsecutive years, and continue annually to dispose of the whole 
of the increased produce. The Council of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of England, desirous that such striking results 
should be investigated and made public, have instructed me to 
prepare a report on these two interesting farms. 
Mr. Prout purchased Blount's and Sweetdew's farms, in 1861. 
They comprise 450 acres, situated in the parish of Sawbridge- 
worth, about four miles from Harlow, and four miles from 
Bishop Stortford. The soil — a clay and strong loam readily 
poaching and running together if worked wet — lies upon a sub- 
soil of drift-clay and cretaceous gravel, a portion of the Eocene 
formation, and bordering on the Chalk and chalk-marl. Sub- 
joined* are analyses made, in 1865, by Professor Voelcker, of the 
soil from three fields, carefully collected by himself, and showing 
no remarkable fertility, and no superabundance of th3 alkalies 
and phosphates, which grain-crops specially require. The pro- 
perty, when conveyed to Mr. Prout thirteen years ago, had for 
some time been in the market, had frightened various intending 
purchasers, and eventually was bought for 33Z. per acre, — a 
moderate cost for a compact estate in a beautiful metropolitan 
county, and only twenty-eight miles from London. But to such 
an indifferent condition had the farm been reduced, that the 
former owner had difficulty in getting a tenant to offer 20s. per 
acre. 
The land was wet, overrun with couch, docks, and thistles, 
and overshadowed with crooked useless fences. Even the fields 
* AXALTSES OF SoiLS AT BlOUXT's FaKM. 
Broad Field. 
Black Acre. 
White Moor. 
Per Cent. 
Per Cent. 
Per Cent. 
4-75 
4-46 
5-49 
4-80 
4-29 
7-91 
Alumina 
5 39 
4-90 
2-06 
Carbonate of lime 
2-45 
4-74 
1-80 
1-84 
1-59 
0-80 
Potash 
0-54 
0-72 
0-51 
Soda 
0-08 
traces. 
0-16 
0 08 
0-01 
0-09 
016 
0-12 
0-27 
79-91 
79-17 
80-91 
100-00 
100-00 
100 00 
53-01 
42-04 
39-38 
