On the Use of the Water- Drill. 
377 
ijrowth of the crops was fully maintained to the end. Take the case 
in Table III., where 2 bushels of dissolved bones, without any 
kind or form of manure, sown with the water-drill, yielded a 
lieavier crop of turnips than 10 loads of farmyard manure, 6 
bushels of bones, and 12 bushels of ashes, unitedly produced. 
This surely must be conclusive upon this point, and the more so 
when corroborated by the testimony of one's own experience 
year by year. 
Why it is that such marvellous results, on some soils especially, 
should accompany the use of the water-drill and superphosphate 
of lime, belongs rather to the chemist than the practical farmer to 
explain. It appears pretty certain, however, that the action of 
tlie water upon the soluble portions of the manure is such that 
healtliy food is made immediately available to the plant, whilst 
the less easily soluble portions are slowly and gradually decom- 
posing in the soil, yielding the support required by the plant as 
it continues to progress, and, as the experiments show, not failing 
it until its full growth has been attained. I have also further 
learned from experience that the manure sown in this liquid 
form is not only beneficial and influential upon the early growth 
of plants when applied to lands where drought or a deficiency of 
moisture prevails, but also upon lands which are in a satisfactory 
condition as regards moisture. On one or two occasions I sowed 
lands with coleseed which were too wet to roll, and when the 
horses had to be taken out in consequence ; and yet the difference 
between the crops where the manure iras soivn with the toater-driil 
and where applied with the dry drill icas as apparent and as marked 
as in any oilier cases where the lands were in a totally opposite con- 
dition. One would scarcely have ex]:)ected this. The general 
supposition would have been that the moisture contained in the 
soil would have exerted the same influence upon the more easily 
soluble portions of the manure as did the water applied to it in 
the cistern of the drill, and that therefore the crop would have 
1)een equally vigorous and healthy where the manure was sown 
dry as where sown in a liquid form. But the result proved 
otherwise. 
In conclusion, I would strongly recommend all my agricultural 
friends to give the water-drill system a fair and early trial, test- 
ing its merits by every conceivable experiment, that its value 
jnay be fairly estimated ; and I doubt not many will then be able 
ti) record as great success and as satisfactory results as I have 
<!one. 
Ayleshy House, Chatteris. 
