474 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
This material would be contained in 5^ cwts. of nitrate of soda, 
2 \ cwts. of superphosphate, and 11 cwts. of kainit; yet the 
ordinary manure for swedes, one tested by many years of expe¬ 
rience and scores of experiments, is something like 4 cwts. of 
superphosphate and 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda per acre. Only 
actual experiments can teach us the requirements of our garden 
crops, and experiments of a systematic sort are few in number. 
We shall have in time results from the Experimental Fruit Farm 
the Duke of Bedford has started at Woburn ; in a commercial 
way we have the trials conducted by Dr. Bernard Dyer at 
Hadlow for the Permanent Nitrate Committee, but as yet these 
and other trials are young, and have not reached permanent 
conclusions. Meanwhile every gardener should have a little 
experimental plot in his own garden : he will learn much about 
his crops, and he will learn what no one else can teach him, i.e. 
the special characteristics of the soil he is working on. Such a 
plot costs but little trouble and becomes more valuable every 
year. An arrangement like the following gives perhaps the 
readiest information—seven plots side by side, each one square 
rod in extent:— 
Plot 1. Gets no manure. 
Plot 2. Gets an all-round manure. A pound of sulphate of 
ammonia as a top dressing, 4 lb. superphosphate or basic slag, 
according to the soil, and 2 lb. kainit. 
Plot 3. Gets an excess of nitrogen, using 8 lb. of sulphate of 
ammonia instead of 1 lb., as in the previous dressing. 
Plot 4. Gets no phosphate—the dressing of plot 2 without 
the phosphate. 
Plot 5. Gets an excess of phosphate, the dressing of plot 2, 
with 12 lb. of phosphate instead of 4 lb. 
Plot 6. Gets no potash, the dressing of plot 2 without the potash. 
Plot 7. Gets excess of potash—the dressing of plot 2, with 
6 lb. of kainit instead of 2 lb. 
On some soils it may be well to try an eighth plot with £ lb. 
of sulphate of iron added to the dressing of plot 2. 
If only a number of gardeners would put down a little trial 
ground of this kind, growing various crops upon it from year to 
year, and reporting their results to the Royal Horticultural 
Society, we should not long remain in our present ignorance of 
the specific needs of our garden plants. This paper has been 
