88 Home Produce, Imports, Consumption, and 
luxuriance ; and in unfavourable seasons the produce has been 
comparatively small, largely owiug to the encouragement of 
weeds, and especially of grass, which, in wet seasons, it has been 
impossible effectually to eradicate, and what has been done has 
not been accomplished without injury to the crop. 
In writing upon the results of the twenty-eight years, 
1852-1879, we adopted, as in the case of the unmanured plot, 
the average of the preceding eight years, 1844-51, to repre- 
sent the standard yield of the farmyard manure plot, irre- 
spectively of material accumulation. The figure so arrived at 
was 28£ bushels at 61 lb. per bushel. Adopting this as the 
standard produce of the plot, then calculating what would be 
the produce in each of the subsequent twenty-eight years, pro- 
vided it fluctuated from the standard from year to year in the 
same degree as the fluctuation of the average produce of the 
country at large, and then taking the difference between this 
calculated produce fluctuating by season alone, and that actually 
obtained each year, the result indicated the increase, if any, due 
to accumulation. On this mode of calculation, the average 
increase due to accumulation would amount, over the twenty- 
eight years, to about 5 bushels ; and the average rate of increase 
from year to year, provided it were uniform throughout the 
period, would be rather less than § of a bushel. 
Adopting the same amount, 28|- bushels, as the standard 
yield, and following the same line of calculation for the forty 
years, the average increase would amount to rather over 6£ 
bushels, and the rate of increase from year to year, if uniform 
throughout the period, would be rather less than one-third of a 
bushel ; that is, less per annum over the forty than over the 
twenty-eight years, which, towards the end, included a series 
of very unfavourable seasons. 
Such are the results for the twenty-eight and for the forty 
years, on the assumption that the standard produce of the farm- 
yard manure plot, irrespectively of material accumulation, was 
only 28^- bushels. This is, however, certainly a very low pro- 
duce to be obtained by the annual application of 14 tons of 
farmyard manure per acre for eight years in succession, and in 
seasons which, taken together, were of more than average pro- 
ductiveness. If, however, we exclude the produce of the first of 
the eight years, 1844, which gave a high yielding crop over the 
country at large, but less than 20 bushels on the farmyard 
manure plot, the average of the remaining seven years amounts 
to 29'3 bushels, whilst three of the seven yielded more than 30 
bushels, and two others 29 bushels or more. Adopting 29 - 3 
bushels as the standard instead of 28£, the result would be an 
