402 Report of Experiments with differeTit Manures 
from the rick of that year (also sampled Dec. 1858) was 83"8. The 
general characteristics of the produce of the different seasons, in 
regard to its percentage of Dry matter, are, therefore, correctlj' 
represented in the results given in the Table in reference to the 
experimental specimens. 
The differences in the percentages of Dry matter in the hay, 
due to different manuring, are by no means so great as those due 
to variation of season or climatic circumstance. Still the general 
tendency of the influence of characteristic descriptions of manure 
is clearly discernible. The indications of the coincident com- 
parative conditions of the produce, according to the manure 
employed, are also consistent. 
Up to the period at which the crops were cut, the use of ammo- 
niacal salts had the almost invariable effect of giving a produce 
which contained a somewhat lower proportion of Dry matter, than 
that grown under otherwise exactly comparable conditions. Such 
is seen to be pretty uniformly the result, whether we compare 
the produce by ammoniacal salts alone with that without manure ; 
that with ammoniacal salts and sawdust, with that with saw- 
dust alone ; that with ammoniacal salts and mineral manure, 
with that by mineral manure alone ; that with ammoniacal salts 
sawdust and mineral manure, with that by sawdust and mineral 
manure alone ; or that with the larger amount of ammoniacal 
salts and mineral manure, with that by the smaller amount of 
ammoniacal salts and the same mineral manure. A similar 
result is observed too, in two years out of the three, where am- 
moniacal salts were used in addition to farmyard manure. The 
results in the Table, which appear to be exceptional to this 
generalisation in regard to the influence of ammoniacal manures 
upon the percentage of Dry matter of tlie hay taken at a given 
period of the season, occur in some of the cases with the artificial 
manures in 1857 ; and in 1856, in the case where the ammoniacal 
salts were used in addition to farmyard manure. 
Ammoniacal salts whicli have thus been seen, other things 
l)eing equal, to give a produce which contains a comparatively 
low percentage of Dry matter, gave, it should be remembered, 
also a mucli increased bulk and weight of hay over a given area; 
hence, even supposing that the description of the herbage, and 
the condition of maturity of the plants, were the same where the 
larger crops were grown with ammoniacal salts, and the smaller 
ones without them, we should still expect that the larger produce 
would dry somewhat less, exposed to equal circumstances during 
the making. But tlie description of the herbage, and its degree 
ol forwardness, have been seen to vary very much according to 
the manure emj)loyed. Tlie produce grown by ammoniacal salts 
gave a much larger proportion of Graminaceous plants than that 
