286 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 29, 1887. 
cultivate it thoroughly. We revert to our own white- 
chaff' Red Wheat to call attention to the fact that the 
Wheat crop at the farm where it was grown was an 
exceptionally fine one, yet the crop in the field which had 
■only a spr ng dressing of chemical manure was decidedly 
■superior to those upon land which had been under sheep- 
fokling or was dressed with farmyard manure. The 
chemical manure consisted of a mixture of nitrate of 
soda, steamed bone flour, and mineral superphosphate. 
Under the advice of Mr. Thomas Browne of King’s Lynn, 
the able chemist of the West Norfolk Farmers’ Manure 
Company, we used neither nitrate nor muriate of potash 
for the Wheat, and the result showed that he was right. 
Of the comparative value of Wheat grown this year 
we are hardly competent to give a fully satisfactory 
opinion, as we have threshed so little as yet; but we 
may say that Oakshott's Champion White and Defiance 
Red are both so good that we shall sow them upon all 
our farms now. The Champion is a fine, bold, bright 
sample, a bushel weighing about 64 lbs., many of the 
ears being fully 6 inches in length. Defiance Red, 
though not so long in ear, is a heavier Wheat, weighing 
70 lbs. a bushel. Webbs’ Giant White Wheat was a 
magnificent crop, one field of 20 acres being alike re¬ 
markable for size of ear and length of straw. It is 
quite useless to attempt growing such Wheat in poor thin 
soil; to do full justice to it the soil must be deep and 
rich. Without such soil it deteriorates into ears of about 
half the size of well grown ears, and the grain is 
proportionately small. 
(To be continued.) 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
Sheep have been out upon the corn stubbles daily to consume fallen 
c^rn, much of which, however, sprouted quickly after harvest, and from 
the green appearance of many stubbles now we have proof that corn 
ripened so quickly as most of it was this year is very liable to be shaken 
out. Our flock of ewes at the home farm have the taint of foot rot, and 
they have been kept out upon the stubbles quite as much for the sake 
of their feet as for the corn they would get there. We can cure any case 
of foot rot, but it appears impossible to prevent it from breaking out 
again in a flock that has once had it. The only effectual remedy is to 
get rid of the entire flock and replace it with sheep known to be sound, 
taking care to keep them off pasture where the tainted flock has been till 
rain or frost has cleansed it. 
Pigs have also been out on stubbles in care of boys, and advantage 
has been taken of their absence from the yards to clear out all manure, 
to dress all walls with hot limewash, and all woodwork with hot tar. 
Floors have been made hard and sound, drains examined and flushed 
out, and every precaution taken to render the piggeries clean and whole¬ 
some for the coming winter. If due attention was given to this impor¬ 
tant matter by every farmer there would soon be an end of swine fever ; 
and the widespread prevalence of it which has led to the closing of so 
many markets is a sure sign of negligence in pig management. No 
doubt the pig will thrive and fatten upon garbage and in a filthy sty, 
but it fattens more quickly in a clean one where risk of disease is 
avoided, and the pork from clean-fed pigs is so superior in delicacy and 
flavour as to well repay for any extra care. We hear of the gradual 
increase of jam factories in Kent; when are we to hear of bacon-curing 
for sale by farmers ? The process is very simple, close attention to de¬ 
tails and good management being certain to ensure satisfactory results. 
Depend upon it “ there’s money in it,” provided the requisite amount of 
energy, intelligence, and enterprise is brought to bear upon the under¬ 
taking. 
Especial care has been given to farm horses lately. They have now 
been withdrawn altogether from pastures, and have dry comfortable 
bedding and shelter at night. Horses often sustain injury by being left 
out late in autumn upon pasture, and we then hear of colds and rheu¬ 
matism, all which might have been avoided by the exercise of a little 
forethought and care. 
THE CHEMISTRY OF VEGETATION. 
In the course of Sir H. E. Roscoe’s address to the British Association 
recently, the following remarks in reference to the vegetable kingdom 
are very interesting. 
The phenomena of vegetation, no less than those of the animal world, 
have, however, during the last fifty years been placed by the chemist on 
an entirely new basis. Although before the publication of Liebig’s 
celebrated report on chemistry and its application to agriculture, pre¬ 
sented to the British As ociation in 1840, much had been done, many 
fundamental facts had been established, still Liebig’s report marks an 
era in the progress of this branch of our science. He not only gathered 
up in a masterly fashion the results of previous workers, but put forward 
his .own original views with a boldness and frequently with a sagacity 
which gave a vast stimulus and interest to the questions at issue. As a 
proof of this I may remind you of the attack which he made on, and 
the complete victory which he gained over, the humus theory. Although 
Saussure and others had already done much to destroy the basis of this 
theory, yet the fact remained that vegetable physiologists up to 1840 
continued to hold to the opinion that humus, or decayed vegetable 
matter, was the only source of the carbon of vegetation. Liebig, giving 
due consideration to the labours of Saussure, came to the conclusion 
that it was absolutely impossible that the carbon deposited as vegetable 
tissue over a given area, as, for instance, over an area of forest land, 
could be derived from humus, which is itself the result of the decay of 
vegetable matter. He asserted that the whole of the carbon of vegeta¬ 
tion is obtained from the atmospheric carbonic acid, which, though only 
present in the small relative proportion of four parts in 10,000 of air, is 
contained in such absolutely large quantity that if all the vegetation on 
the earth’s surface were burnt the proportion of carbonic acid which 
would thus be thrown into the air would not be sufficient to double the 
present amount. That this conclusion of Liebig’s is correct needed ex¬ 
perimental proof, but such proof could only be given by long-continued 
and laborious experiment, and this serves to show that chemical research 
is not now confined to laboratory experiments, lasting perhaps a few 
minutes, but that it has invaded the domain of agriculture as well as of 
physiology, and reckons the periods of her observations in the field not 
by minutes, but by years. 
It is to our English agricultural chemists, I awes and Gilbert, that 
we owe the complete experimental proof required. And it is true that 
this experiment was a long and tedious one, for it has taken forty-four 
years to give the definite reply. At Rothamsted a plot was set apart for 
the growth of Wheat. For forty-four successive years that field has 
grown Wheat without addition of any carbonised manure ; so that the 
only possible source from which the plant could obtain the carbon for 
its growth is the atmospheric carbon acid. Now, the quantity of carbon 
which on an average was removed in the form of Wheat and straw from 
a plot manured only with mineral matter was 1000 lbs., while on 
another plot, for which a nitrogenous manure was employed, 1500 lbs. 
more carbon was annually removed ; or 2500 lbs. of carbon are removed 
by this crop annually without the addition of any carbonaceous manure. 
So that Liebig’s provision has received a complete experimental 
verification. 
May I, without wearying you with experimental details, refer for a 
moment to Liebig’s views as to the assimilation of nitrogen by plants—■ 
a much more complicated and difficult question than the one we have 
just considered—and compare these with the most modern results of 
agricultural chemistry. We find that in this case his views have not 
been substantiated. He imagined that the whole of the nitrogen 
required by the plant was derived from atmospheric ammonia ; whereas 
Lawes and Gilbert have shown by experiments of a similar nature to 
those just described, and extending over a nearly equal length of time, 
that this source is wholly insufficient to account for the nitrogen 
removed in the crop, and have come to the conclusion that the nitrogen 
must have been obtained either from a store of nitrogenous material in 
the soil or by absorption of free nitrogen from the air. These two ap¬ 
parently contradictory alternatives may perhaps be reconciled by the 
recent observations of Warrington and of Berthelot, which have thrown 
light upon the changes which the so-called nitrogenous capital of the 
soil undergoes, as well as upon its chemical nature, for the latter has 
shown that under certain conditions the soil has the power of absorbing 
the nitrogen of the air, forming compounds which can subsequently be 
assimilated by the plant. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51° 82' 40" N.; Long, 0° 8' 0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
date. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
2-3- 
Hygrome- 
fl . 
o £ . 
Shade Tem- 
Radiation 
a 
32m 2 
£ 
ter. 
33 a 
or 
p.* o 
crr.O 
perature. 
Temperature 
<a 
« 
September. 
o X — 
In 
Ou 
a 
Dry. 
Wet. 
So 
Eh 
Max. 
Min. 
sun. 
grass 
Inches. 
deg. 
1 deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
In. 
Sunday . 
18 
30.3(55 
54 0 
51.3 
N. 
56 2 
64 1 
47.8 
1094 
44 8 
Monday. 
19 
30.499 
53-8 
60.7 
N. 
56 0 
62.9 
47.7 
103 G 
42.7 
_ 
Tuesday .... 
20 
30.338 
58 0 
64.6 
N. 
55.7 
63.1 
45.3 
94.6 
40 2 
0.010 
Wednesday.. 
2L 
30.355 
54.2 
517 
N, 
55.6 
60.G 
50.3 
*5.4 
47.L 
Thursday.... 
22 
30.320 
56.3 
51.5 
N. 
55.8 
67.2 
48.9 
114.3 
42.3 
_ 
Friday . 
23 
30.419 
54.7 
511 
N.E. 
55.5 
62 0 
45 4 
88.1 
38 7 
_ 
Saturday .... 
24 
30.471 
51.9 
47.7 
.N.E. 
55.8 
54.2 
49.9 
71.7 
44.4 
— 
80.395 
547 
51.2 
55.8 
62.0 
47.9 
95.3 
42.9 
0.010 
REMARKS 
18th.—Generally bright and fine. 
19th.—Bright and pleasant, with cloudy intervals in early afternoon. 
2otli.—Generally dull, though bright early and occasionally (luring the morning. 
2lst.—Fine, but with little sunshine and much cloud. 
22nd.—Very bright and pleasant. 
23rd.—Very dull morning, bright after about 2 P.M. 
24th.—Cloudy and dull throughout. 
A fine seasonable week. Temperature about the average, and remarkably similar to 
that of the preceding week.—G J SYMONS. 
