448 
Agricultural Maxima. 
" (g). In the year 1829 I was informed bj- tlie late Mr. George Clarke, then 
occupier of the farm of Barnby Moor, Notts, that two or three years before he 
had a field of Hunter's wheat which yielded 60 bushels per acre. 
" Qi). Early in the current century a field close to a neighbouring village, 
which had been long in grass, produced a crop of oats which yielded at the rate 
of 94 bushels per acre over a field of at least 30 acres. The exact year or variety 
of oats I cannot t^ll, but I had the information from the brother and successor 
of the person who then occupied the farm. 
" With the exception of the fifth instance, all these examples of large pro- 
duce I know either by personal experience or by information at first-hand from 
trustworthy persons. I have given you the names of farms and farmers to 
give point and definiteness to the cases, but, if published, their names must be 
suppressed, as I am not at liberty to publish what was told me in confidence 
by others. I should add that the first five instances refer to crops grown on 
strong loams belonging to the lower carboniferous formation ; (/) and Qi) are 
on lighter loams on the old red sandstone. It is also worthy of note that the 
most abundant crops of wheat of which I am aware were of Hunter's variety. 
" I know how much is wanting in all these cases- to render them really valu- 
able, but I send them, such as they are." 
7. Some of these instances, thoue:h maxima in the district of 
their occurrence, have been exceeded elsewhere. The crops of 
oats, for Instance, have been not unfrequently largely exceeded. 
On Whitfield Farm, near Thornbury, Gloucestershire, on a field 
named Ferney Hurst, about 11 acres in extent, a sandy loam on 
the old red sandstone formation, which had been broken up out 
of old pasture by paring and burning, and had then borne a crop 
of turnips partly fed off with sheep, a crop of white Tartarian oats 
was reaped, which exceeded 13^ quarters per acre. I have no 
record of the year, but the field was noteworthy in the second 
year after this crop of oats for the remarkable deficiency of two 
lands in the midst of a very good crop of wheat, which had been 
left unlimed when the field received a liberal dressing on the 
oat stubble. These "lands" were the more observable owing to 
the seed-furrow for the wheat having been across the former 
ploughing, so that they stretched 5^ yards wide a-plece obliquely 
across the ridges in which the wheat had been sown, exhibiting 
in comparatively stunted and scanty straw a most striking contrast 
to the general character of the crop, and a most instructive lesson 
on the value of lime as a dressing for newly-broken-up sand}- soil. 
8. Mr. Smith, of Woolstone, near Bletchley Station, Buck- 
inghamshire, communicates the following history of a mangold- 
wurzel crop raised this year ; — 
" In October, 1858, I spread in the ordinary way 10 tons of farmyard 
manure per acre over the wheat stubble, the manure having been taken from 
the yard and stacked in May. I then trench-ploughed to a depth of 9 
inches by steam-power, at a cost, including wear and tear, of IDs. 2c?. per acre ; 
I then subsoilcd between the ridges with horses to the depth of 14 inches, at 
a cost of 3s. per acre ; in this state it lay through the winter until the middle 
of April, when I sent two men with hand-hoes to clear the annuals from the 
tojjs of the ridges, and a hand-drill to drill the mangold-seed with. The two 
