PRACTICAL PAPERS—WHEAT CULTURE. 
247 
ing of these ‘ green crops * results in a more thorough admixture of the 
food-producing elements of the soil and its prompt permeation by water 
and the gasses, which are so necessary to plant-growth. France following 
in our footsteps, or we in hers, in at least one particular—the want of a 
proper rotation system—has reduced the average yield of wheat to fifteen 
bushels. The single fact that, while England has two acres in ‘green 
crops ’ for every acre in wheat, France has three acres in wheat for every 
acre in green crops, explains the cause of the great discrepancy in the 
yield of that valuable cereal in these countries.” 
Mr. Capron ascribes the difference to the more extensive cul¬ 
tivation of the root crops in England, and to a deeper culture 
of the soil, but he omits all mention of the fact that in Eng¬ 
lish agriculture natural and artificial fertilizers are much, more 
extensively used than in French. 
This one fact, I repeat, so forcibly expressed by the statistics 
of_ English.'agriculture, ought to be considered sufficient proof 
in itself that the yield of wheat in a given locality can be kept 
up to a high standard indefinitely by means entirely within the 
province"of human effort. But there is other proof. 
Mr. J. B. Lawes, of Rothampstead, England, conducted a se¬ 
ries of experiments in wheat-culture,extending over many years, 
to which allusion has already been made as probably the most 
extensive and thorough on record. Mr. Lawes had several 
plats of land under constant culture in wheat for a series of 
years: one plat unmanured, one manured w T ith farmyard ma¬ 
nure each year, and the others annually manured with various 
kinds of artificial fertilizers. The result is thus summed up 
in the department report for 1868 : 
“ This average’’_result of sixteen annual experiments, is interesting and 
instructive, tending to show—indeed actually showing—that English soil 
unmanured,^though^thorouglily tilled, yields little more than the average 
product of unmanured American soil indifferently tilled. It also teaches 
the necessity,'as well as profit, of liberal manuring. The increase effected 
by barn-yard manure was 138 per cent., and by the application of 
various fertilizers, 148 per cent.,—in bushels respectively, 20% an d 
21%, worth, at average rates for the period, at least $25 and $27. This is 
far more than the cost of the fertilizers, leaving a rent-paying profit. Our 
own wheat-growers should ponder these results and profit by them.” 
These experiments, though made in England, are, from their 
nature, alike valuable to the agriculturists of all countries. 
