210 
The Past Agricultural Year. 
the manures by drainage. The question remains — whether land 
farmed and manured in the ordinary way would suffer in any- 
thing like the same degree from the same cause? The results 
of Professor Way, which have been referred to, clearly show 
that considerable loss may so arise when animal nitrogenous 
manures, such as hair, horn shavings, woollen rags, &c., are 
employed ; and results obtained at Rothamsted show that there 
is a similar loss when vegetable nitrogenous manures, such as 
rape-cake, are used. Further, the drainage water from the 
dunged plot in the experimental wheat-field at Rothamsted is 
sometimes found to contain a considerable amount of nitric acid ; 
but always very much less than that collected at the same time 
from adjoining plots receiving much less nitrogen as manure, 
but in the form of ammonia-salts or nitrate of soda. Whilst, 
therefore, it is to be assumed that the loss of the nitrogen of 
manure by drainage in the past season was proportionally much 
greater in the experimental wheat-field at Rothamsted than in 
the case of land farmed in the ordinary way, there can, never- 
theless, be no doubt that much of the land of the country at 
large must also have suffered great loss in the same way. 
XIII. — The Past Agricultural Year. By J. C. MoRTOX. 
My report of the agricultural experience of the past year will 
be little more than an edition of the letters of my correspondents. 
I had made inquiries on the subject early in the summer, in 
order to ascertain the effect of the unusually wet and cold autumn, 
winter, and spring on the health of stock, the difficulties of culti- 
vation, and the prospects of the harvest. Answers came to me 
from all parts of the country from gentlemen farming under 
a great variety of circumstances ; and during the subsequent 
autumn I received additional information on the final results 
of the field-work of the year, which are, however, already too 
well known. The expectation that some definite lessons, perhaps 
affecting future practice, might be gathered from these reports 
has scarcely been realised. The disaster has been too general 
and complete. Even drained land, if arable, may be impossible 
to cultivate, and, if pasture, may rot sheep in a very wet season ; 
and hay may spoil and potatoes rot and wheat remain unripened, 
under good and bad management alike, when the downpour is 
almost continuous. The following pages, accordingly, contain 
little more than a gloomy picture of almost universal disaster. 
They contain, first, an exact account of the weather, drawn up 
by Mr. G. J. Symons, F.R.S., of Camden Square, who has con- 
