Report on the Competition for Seed-Wlieat, 1880. 
81 
soil of Chadbury, it would have been most baneful on the chalky 
soil at Bulbridge. The chalk on which the thin covering of 
soil rests is as effectual a natural drain as a subsoil of pure sand 
would be. To prevent evaporation as much as possible, Mr. 
Rawlence resorts to thick sowing, and before the sun has 
attained strength sufficient to dry up the surface-soil, his wheat- 
fields are covered by a thick crop of green. This he could not 
secure were he to trust to the tillering of the young plants. 
The earlier part of the season of 1880 was a singularly good 
wheat season, and the promise of the experimental crops, like 
that of the wheat crops of the country, was very encouraging. 
But at the time when the ears were filling, a period of rainy 
weather produced a condition of the atmosphere specially fitted 
for the development of parasitical fungi. Mildew attacked all 
the crops, and prevented the complete filling of the grains by 
arresting the elaborated juices of the plant on their way to the 
«ars, and utilising them for their own growth. The result was 
that just before harvest, when there was the prospect of a heavy 
yield, the mildew destroyed these hopes by giving a larger 
percentage of imperfectly filled grains, and so greatly increasing 
tlie amount of the seconds in the produce of the crops. Although 
growing on so dry a soil, the crops grown by Mr. Rawlence 
suffered most ; but for this the produce of his cultivation would 
have shown a much more favourable result. 
The crops were cut down during the month of August. The 
results of the cultivation will be best seen by an examination 
of the preceding Tables. 
The estimates of the value of the grain and straw were 
supplied by the growers, and represent the local opinion of the 
market value. This is obviously a fairer basis than by treating 
the whole at the prices of a particular market, although it 
necessarily introduces a different standard for each of the four 
localities. 
The real issues of the trial as an agricultural experiment will 
be perhaps more apparent if we consider what the produce of 
grain and straw would be per acre at the rate of the produce 
<)f the portions of an acre given in those Tables. In placing 
these calculations before the reader, I have inserted in the first 
column the total amount of grain produced in each plot, and 
arranged the details of each kind of wheat in the order of the 
amount of produce : — 
onnccs. The grains were estimated to have numbered 576,840. The ground on 
which Mr. Miller conducted his experiment was a light blackish soil on a 
gravelly bottom. One half of the giound was very much dunged ; the other half 
was without any manure. "No difference was however observed either in the 
living plants or in their produce, though thus differently treated. 
VOL. XVII. — S. S. G 
