118 
Experiments  of  the  late  Mr.  James  Mason. 
cro])S.  During  the  last  six  years  I have  made  many  experi- 
mental growths,  hut  only  within  the  last  two  or  three  years 
have  I started  it  as  a full  crop.”  And  again,  in  1898,  he 
writes  : “ It  was  very  desirable  in  my  ])roject  to  increase  the 
number  of  leguminous  plants  as  collectors  of  nitrogen,  and 
lucerne  seemed  to  offer  great  ach  antages : length  of  life,  depth 
of  root,  valuable  green  fodder  and  hay,  &c.,  &c.,  and  also  an 
ideal  collector  of  nitrogen.” 
A journey  into  the  Isle  of  Thanet  was  made  to  ascertain 
the  best  method  of  managing  lucerne,  for  in  that  district  the 
crop  had  long  been  cultivated  and  the  acreage  was  increasing 
with  the  succession  of  dry  seasons.  The  farming  of  lucerne 
was  indeed  practically  unknown  excej)t  on  the  chalk  formation 
and  on  some  of  the  warmer  soils  of  the  South  and  East  of 
England ; to  such  land  as  the  Oxford  Olay  farmed  l)y 
Mr.  Mason  it  was  considered  wholly  unsuited.  However, 
Mr.  Mason’s  scheme  was  to  open  uj)  the  subsoil  by  deep  steam 
cultivation,  manure  liberally  with  basic  slag  to  furnish  phos- 
phoric acid  and  lime,  trusting  to  the  weathering  of  the  subsoil 
to  supjdy  potash  and  to  the  lucerne  crop  to  assimilate  nitrogen. 
Finally,  after  a considerable  root  residue  had  been  accumulated, 
he  proposed  to  br(“ak  up  the  lucerne,  grow  a few  corn  and  root 
crops  out  of  the  accumulated  f(“rtility  and  lay  down  to  lucerne 
again.  Unfortunately,  in  his  anxiety  to  sow  leguminous  crops 
only,  Mr.  Mason  made  the  mistake  of  drilling  his  lucerne  with- 
out a cover  croj),  and  as  the  seasons  w(>re  dry  this  resulted  in  a 
bad  plant,  a defect  from  which  the  Helds  never  recovered 
Hnancially.  After  a year  or  two  of  such  failures  Mr.  Mason 
began  to  drill  his  lucerne  among  beans,  and  though  they  do 
not  afford  the  most  satisfactory  of  covei’  crops  the  result  was  a 
much  better  stand  of  lucerm*,  the  necessary  foundation  for  the 
success  of  the  whole  scheme.  Possibly,  too,  the  earlier  sowings 
of  lucerne  grew'  indifferently  because  of  the  lack  of  the 
appropriate  bacteria  in  a soil  which  had  never  before  grown 
lucerne  ; the  American  farmer,  for  instance,  when  introducing 
“alfalfa”  into  a lunv  district  has  learnt  the  desirability  of 
sowing  w'ith  the  seed  a little  soil  from  an  old  lucerne  field. 
Mr.  Mason  laid  down  several  hundn'd  acres  with  lucerne, 
but  he  ilid  not  always  carry  out  his  original  intention  of  croj)ping 
out  the  accumulated  nitrogen  with  corn  or  root  crops  ; instead, 
he  sowed  grass  seeds  as  the  lucerne  w'as  getting  old  and  brought 
the  field  into  the  conditio)i  of  permanent  ])asture.  rareful 
accounts  were  kept  against  each  field  and  it  is  only  in  those 
