104 Report of Experiments on the Growth of Wheat. 
With those characters of season, which proved extremely adverse 
to grass and spring-sown crops, the wheat-crop was reported to be 
generally well got in, and to be one of the largest in bulk and 
yield for many years past. 
The amount and character of the produce obtained in the 
experimental field is sufficiently indicated by the following sum- 
mary of the results yielded on some of the most important 
plots : — 
Table I. — Summahy of the Results of the First Season, 1843-4. 
Produce PKR 
Acre, &c. 
Manures. 
Dressed Corn. 
Straw 
and 
Chaff. 
(Quantities per Acre.) 
Quantity. 
Weight 
per 
Bushel. 
Total 
Corn. 
Ashes of 14 tons Farmyard Manure (Plot 4) .. 
Mixed Mineral Manure alone ; mean of 9 plots) 
(5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15) J 
Mixed Mineral Manure, and 65 lbs. Sulphate of 1 
Ammonia; mean of 3 plots (9, 16, and 17) ../ 
Mixed Mineral Manure, and 80 lbs. Sulphate of 1 
Bush. Pks. 
15 0 
20 If 
14 2J 
1 15 2f 
' 19 If 
j 24 \\ 
1 
lbs. 
58- 5 
59- 3 
58-0 
61-0 
62*3 
61'8 
lbs. 
923 
1276 
888 
1009 
1275 
1580 
lbs. 
1120 
1476 
1104 
1155 
1423 
1772 
It will be observed that notwithstanding the very favourable re- 
port of the year's crop, the produce in these experiments was, with- 
out manure only 15 bushels, and with farmyard manure scarcely 
20J bushels of dressed^ corn, with proportionally small amounts 
of straw. These low results afford satisfactory evidence that the 
land was in a condition of practical or agricultural exhaustion ; 
and hence, that it was well fitted for the purpose of experiments 
the object of which was to show in what constituent, or class of 
constituents, the soil had become, by the previous course of 
cropping, the most deficient, so far as the requirements of the 
wheat-crop were concerned. 
It is specially worthy of remark, too, that on land in this 
condition, the ashes, or mineral constituents, of farmyard dung, 
gave no increase whatever, and artificial mineral manures did so to 
the amount of less than a bushel of dressed corn, and only 35 lbs. 
of straw. On the other hand, mineral manure and only 65 lbs. of 
sulphate of ammonia per acre, gave nearly as much produce as 
the farmyard manure ; whilst one experiment, in which 80 lbs. 
of sulphate of ammonia were employed with mixed mineral 
manure, gave the highest produce obtained in that year, and 
nearly 4 bushels of corn, and 300 lbs. of straw, more than was 
yielded by the farmyard manure. 
