42 Report on Messrs. Prout and Middleditch' s 
tive cereals were grown with about 20s. per acre of artificial 
manure. Experience, however, has shown that to prosecute 
successfully JNIr. Prout's system, fertilisers to the value of 50s. 
or 60s. per acre require to be applied annually. 
Years. 
Suteoikd. 
Ploughed. 
Scarified. 
Total. 
1 oDi J 
Acres. 
Acres. 
Acres. 
Acres. 
tind > 
977 
18G3) 
1864 
191 
409 
264 
864 
1865 
98 
496 
317 
911 
1866 
310 
310 
1867 
637 
i74 
811 
1868 
321 
257 
678 
1869 
368 
116 
502 
1870 
281 
277 
558 
1871 
296 
130 
426 
1872 
'57 
304 
55 
416 
1873 
363 
4 
367 
1874 
408 
408 
623 
5612 
2074 
8309 
But Mr. Prout has done more than bring into superior and 
profitable cultivation 450 acres of heavy clay land, thirteen years 
ago worth not more than 20s. per acre. He has inaugurated an 
almost original system of husbandry. Cereals and clover are year 
after year sold to be removed from the occupation ; all ordinary 
rotations are ignored; corn-crops follow each other on the same 
field for several consecutive years ; wheat has been taken for five 
years following; cereals have been reiterated for eight years. 
For his consecutive corn-crops Mr. Prout only desires deep 
thorough cultivation, extirpation of weeds, and the regular supply 
of plant-food in the form of appropriate portable manures. His 
present system was not adopted hastily and inconsistently. Mr. 
Prout is no mere theorist. He brought to Sawbridgcworth abun- 
dantexperience, acquired in farming both in Cornwall andjCanada, 
and for the first few years endeavoured to farm on established 
principles, to pursue some well-advised rotation, to keep and 
feed plenty of live stock, to increase fertility by the purchase of 
London manure. I3ut, like some other agriculturists, he found 
that he could not make a satisfactory balance-sheet. Messrs. 
Lawes and Gilbert's successful experiments at Rotliamsted in 
growing grain-crops in consecutive years with artificial manures, 
justified, he believed, the more extensive adoption of .this 
system ; and he determined to sell ye;u- by year the whole of his 
growing-crops, and to restore an equivalent of plant-food in the 
form of portable fertilisers. Accordingly in 18G4, 147 acres of 
