HOOS field leguminous and wheat-fallow soils. 163 
The fertility of the recently broken up leguminous land is very 
strongly brought out in the 1899 crop. The yield in 1900 was much 
smaller than might have been expected from laud which in 1899 was 
in such a high state of fertility; but the winter of 1899-1900 was 
exceedingly wet, and resulted in the washing away from the surface 
soil of a very large proportion of the nitrates formed daring the 
autumn, hi the BroadbaLk field, where the subsoil is tapped by drain- 
pipes which enable the drainage water to be systematically collected 
and analyzed, this heavy loss of nitrates through autumn and winter 
drainage was very clearly noted by the examination of the various 
samples of drainage water collected. This loss no doubt accounts for 
the comparative poverty of the crop of 1900 a> compared with thai of 
1890, though even then the richness of the soil as compared with that 
of the unmannred wheat plate is very evident. 
