Expenmental Plots at Rothamsted, from 1864 to 1883. 393 
of our crops by means of artificial manures, which do not 
supply anv carbon, does the increase also come out of the soil? 
If it does, the artificial manures will cease to be effective 
when all the carbon is exhausted. 
Analyses of the water passing through a cultivated field show 
that while one very important and costly manure ingredient is 
there in abundance, there are others which are only there in 
very minute quantities. 
Here, then, is a large field of investigation opened. 
The soil itself, without external aid from fertilising matter, 
appears to be capable of producing much more growth than it 
was formerly credited with, and at the present time, when the 
provisions for compensation under the Agricultural Holdings 
Acts involve a distinction between the fertility which is the 
property of the landlord, and that which belongs to the tenant, 
investigations which have a direct bearing upon these questions 
must be both interesting and instructive. While therefore the 
previous paper dwelt more especially upon the influence of the 
manure upon the crop, the present article will enter more fully 
into the question of the action which takes place beneath the soil. 
We propose to follow the same plan which was adopted on 
the previous occasion, of giving a short outline of the character 
of the weather of each year, illustrating its influence upon the 
crop by a selection of the produce from plots that have been 
differently manured. 
Since the publication of our paper upon the growth of wheat 
for 20 vears in succession, we have published two articles in 
this Journal ; one, in 1868, relating to the average yield of our 
wheat crops from 1852 to 1868 ; and the other, in 1880, under 
the title of " Our Climate and our Wheat Crops," where we 
traced the character of the climate of several years in which the 
crops grown were remarkable, either for being very large, or 
very poor in their yield ; it will therefore be less necessary to 
dwell at any length upon the character of the climate of each 
separate season, although the subject could not very well be 
altogether omitted. 
Twenty-first Season, 1863-64. 
October, Xovember, and December 1863, were warmer than 
usual, with upon the whole rather less than the average 
amount of rain. January and February 1864, though including 
some abnormally warm intervals, embraced longer periods of 
very cold and wintry weather, which checked forward vegeta- 
tion ; there was considerably less than the average fall of rain in 
January, and a very slight fall, including snow, in February. In 
2 D 2 
