36 
Continuous Corn Growing. 
A system, essentially good in principle, may, through a 
change in circumstances or a fall in prices, fail of general 
adoption ; but it is eminently desirable to set at rest the 
question as to whether such a system is feasible ; so that when 
circumstances favour its adoption the knowledge may be 
available as to how and when it can be carried out. 
The late Mr. Prout, besides having had large farming 
experience in Cornwall and Canada, was a diligent follower of, 
and firm believer in, the teachings of chemical science as 
applied to agriculture. He took a great interest in the work 
of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamsted, and soon came into close 
association with the late Dr. Augustus Voelcker, by whose 
advice he was mainly guided in the carrying out of his inquiry. 
Lawes and Gilbert had already shown that, if the requirements 
of farm crops were studied in relation to the soil on which 
they were grown, it was quite possible to maintain their 
growth on the same land year after year without apparent 
deterioration ; that it was unnecessary, therefore, to be tied to 
the following of a rotation ; or even to depend upon the supply 
of farmyard manure, as fertility could be maintained by the 
judicious use of artificial manures. The work of these 
investigators on the heavy clay soil of Rothamsted was at a 
later date (1876) followed up on a different kind of soil — 
a light sandy loam — at the Society’s Woburn Experimental 
Farm, under the late Dr. Voelcker, and, practically, with the 
same general conclusions. Mr. Prout was thus fully aware of 
what was engaging the attention of agricultural chemists ; 
and, in embarking on his undertaking, he was not slow to 
avail himself of the assistance he might derive from their 
researches. 
Briefly put, the problem which Mr. Prout set himself to 
solve was whether on a clay farm such as his it was possible 
to grow corn year after year, and to dispense with rotations 
and the keeping of stock. If this could be done, the high 
prices then ruling for corn seemed to warrant a profitable 
return and the abandonment of much that made farming a 
complex and uncertain undertaking. 
Samples of the soils on the farm were taken and analysed 
by Dr. Voelcker with results that justified the belief that 
Mr. Prout’s system could be safely adopted : and so the work 
was begun. The analytical results will be described in detail 
later. It is sufficient for the moment to say that Mr. Prout’s 
enterprise has supplied the best example, in modern farming 
experience, of the wisdom of combining practice with science, 
and has abundantly justified the conclusions based on chemi- 
cal science as to the possibility of supplying the needs of a 
long series of corn crops grown year after year on the same 
