Desirable Agricultural Experiments. 
271 
hausting crops too, while the damage done to heavy land in cart- 
ing off a root crop in a wet autumn is often a very serious item. 
The foregoing remarks point distinctly to two desirable ex- 
periments which might be conducted separately or together. 
The first would be for the purpose of comparing the results of 
the ploughing-in of nitrogen-accumulating crops with those of 
feeding them on the land ; and in the second the results of 
growing roots would be compared with those of growing nitrogen- 
accumulating crops. Although there would be a saving of 
expense in combining the two trials, for the sake of simplicity 1 
will describe separately the proposed methods of conducting them. 
For the first trial two leguminous crops would sufiice, and 
those suggested are red clover and common vetches. Half of 
each crop would be ploughed in when in full blossom, and half 
would be fed on the land by sheep (which would have no other 
food), and then the land would be ploughed. In order to 
make the conditions equal, it might be arranged that only 
as much land as the sheep fed bare in a day should be 
ploughed each day on the division to be ploughed in ; or, as less 
troublesome, half the latter might be ploughed at the com- 
mencement of the feeding, and half at the end of it. With- 
out some such arrangement, it might be said that there would 
be an advantage in favour of the fed-on division, arising from 
the continued maturing of the crop upon it while feeding was 
in progress. To insure as complete a consumption of the vetches 
as possible, it would be necessary to cut them, and give them to 
the sheep in racks or through hurdles — a not uncommon practice ; 
otherwise so large a proportion of the crop might be trodden 
down that the distinction between ploughing-in and feeding-on 
would be less marked than it should be. The expenses of this 
operation and of otherwise attending to the sheep would, of 
course, be charged. The increase in the live weight of the sheep 
would be taken and valued, and they would then have finished 
their part in the trial. The land would all lie fallow until the 
autumn, when it would be drilled with wheat for the second 
year’s crop. In the third year barley or oats would be grown. 
No manure would be applied to either of the com crops. The 
grain of each year’s crop would be measured, weighed, and 
valued, and the straw would be weighed and valued. Then 
we should see whether the returns from grain and straw from 
the ploughed-in portion of each crop were greater or less than 
the returns from the meat, grain, and straw of the fed-on por- 
tion. The returns obtained from respectively ploughing-in and 
feeding-on clover might also be compared with those of vetches. 
If this trial were carried out in exactly the same way at ten 
