Essays in Natural History and Agriculture — Story, Setting & Ideas

There were patches of several square yards where there did not appear to be a single grain left; and wherever the birds took a grain from the middle of the ear, when in the milky state, the grains on each side of it appeared to grow no more, but shrivelled up in the ear.

I have little doubt that in this portion of the field one-third of the crop was destroyed. All this seems to reduce the experiment to little more than guess-work; and it will, probably, be very difficult to persuade those who did not see the field when it was cut, to credit this report of the devastation made by the birds; even when they are told that Clitheroe is a town of 7,000 inhabitants, and probably as many sparrows, and that apparently they were all assembled to feed in this field; and they became so accustomed to the good living they found there, that even when our neighbours' wheat was fit to eat, they continued to favour this field with their visits in preference to going elsewhere. I estimate the damage on No. 1 at one-third, No. 2 at one-fourth, No. 3 at one-fifth; this was later than the others, and suffered more from rust than birds.

The following are the results:--From 3,060 yards manured with No. 1, there were obtained 1,042 lbs. of wheat, or 27 1/2 bushels of 60 lbs. each to the statute acre; if we add one-half to this, as we assume that one-third was destroyed by the birds, it will give 41 1/4 bushels to the statute acre. The weight of straw from this portion was 188 stones 5 lbs., 14 lbs. to the stone. From 2,856 yards manured with No. 2, 962 lbs. of wheat were obtained, and 155 stones 9 lbs. of straw; this is equal to 27 1/4 bushels per acre, or with one-third added, for estimated damage, it is equal to 36 bushels per statute acre. From 2610 yards manured with No. 3, there were 1,067 lbs. of wheat, and 211 stones 7 lbs. of straw, or 33 bushels to the statute acre, to which if we add one-fourth, according to the estimate of damage, it will be equal to 41 1/4 bushels per acre. It will be observed that this portion yielded a far greater weight of straw per acre than either of the others, and from the sort of manure applied, it was expected that this would be the case.

No. 1 yielded straw at the rate of 297 3/4 stones per acre. " 2 " " " " 246 3/4 " " " 3 " " " " 392 1/3 " "

Many people may feel inclined to say, that all these apparent data are mere guesses, and that a crop may be made into anything one likes, if they assume so much for damages; but, fortunately, it is not all guess-work. I have stated previously that I covered a part of each division with guano a fortnight after the application of the manures in April, intending to see what advantage was obtained by the use of it; but, owing to the depredations of the birds, the portions of the first and second divisions manured with guano were not kept separate from those which were left without guano; but the third being later, and, therefore, not so much injured by them, gave me an opportunity of ascertaining the effect. I measured off a land which had been so manured, and reaped and thrashed it out separately. From this land of 100 yards long and 10 feet wide (3,000 square feet), there was obtained 220 lbs. of wheat, or 53 bushels of 60 lbs. per statute acre; and this was far from being the best portion of the field. I don't mean that it was not the best portion of the crop, but I mean that the soil was not so good there as it was in other parts of the field; as I have before stated, in the best part of the field the crop was spoiled by being lodged by the rain, and subsequently attacked by rust.

I communicate this to you, in the hope that the publication of it in your paper maybe the means of stimulating others to try the same experiments. It is not too late yet to try for the next year's crop, and I have no doubt that Mr. Blyth will be happy to supply both material and information to any who may require them from him. It is the duty of everyone to promote the advancement of agriculture; and this is my contribution towards it. I have not yet done, for I have sown the same field with wheat again, and hope, with a favourable season, to reap a still more abundant crop next year.

CLITHEROE, _October 12th_, 1844.

SIR,--Last October you published an account of an attempt of mine to grow wheat on the same land year after year; and, as I have repeated the experiment this year, I shall be obliged if you will be kind enough to insert the account of it in the "Guardian," as the subject appears to me to be an important one; and, as many persons who may read this letter may either not have seen the former, or may have forgotten it, I trust that a short summary of the former experiments may not be out of place.

These experiments took place in the autumn of 1841, after the field had been cleared of a crop of oats, which was a very bad one; the land being not only naturally poor, but foul and exhausted by long cropping. As the season was very wet, it was indifferently cleaned, and one-fourth of it manured with a compost of night-soil and ashes, and then the field was sowed with wheat. Two of the remaining three-fourths were manured on the 6th of May, 1842 (the spring being a very dry one, no rain came until that day), one with guano, the other with nitrate of soda, each at the rate of two hundredweight to the statute acre, and the remaining fourth was left unmanured.

The following were the results at harvest:--That manured with night-soil and ashes produced 32 bushels of 60 lbs. per acre; guano, 27 bushels; nitrate of soda, 27 bushels; unmanured, 19 2/3 bushels. When the field had been cleared of the crop, it was immediately ploughed up, and, as the season was favourable, the land was well cleaned and sowed with wheat in October, 1842, without any manure except 1 cwt. of guano, which was scattered over it when the wheat was coming up. The field was divided into three portions, and in April, 1843, was manured as follows:--No. 1, with 90 lbs. of sulphate of magnesia, and 2 cwt. nitrate of soda to the statute acre; No. 2, with a compound from a manufacturer of chemical manures; No. 3, with 60 lbs. of silicate of soda and 2 cwt. of nitrate of soda to the acre; and, with the view of still further varying the experiment, a part of each portion was sowed with guano a fortnight after the application of the chemical manures. The crop promised to be a very good one, but it was much plundered by the birds, and as the summer was wet, it suffered also much from rust. Allowing for the destruction occasioned by the birds, the crop was estimated at:

41 1/4 bushels in patch No. 1, 36 " " No. 2, 41 1/4 " " No. 3,

and in that part of No. 3 which was also covered with guano, it reached by actual weight (not by estimate), 53 bushels of 60 lbs. to the acre. Those patches in Nos. 1 and 2 which had guano put on them, suffered so much from the depredations of the birds, that no account was taken of them separately. The crop was cleared off the land, which was cleaned, and again sowed with wheat on 3rd October, 1843. It was drilled in rows seven inches apart, and at the rate of 2 1/2 bushels to the acre. It is to the results of this crop that I now wish to call your attention. Before sowing, the land was subsoiled to the depth of from 14 to 16 inches; except a strip of about 10 feet in width, down the middle of the field, which was left untouched for the purpose of determining what were the advantages derived from subsoiling. If the advantage was merely that of thorough draining (for the field had not been thoroughly drained previous to the subsoiling), it was thought probable that this strip of 10 feet wide would be drained by the subsoiling on each side of it; but if, in addition to this, the wheat plant derived more nourishment by striking its root deeper into the soil, where that was loosened by the subsoil plough, the crop ought to be better in the subsoiled than in the unsubsoiled part. The field runs over the ridge of a hill, and upon that ridge the soil is so poor and thin, that it was deemed expedient to give it a slight dressing of coal-ashes and night-soil, from an idea that the plant would scarcely survive the winter unless some stimulus were applied there; but the ashes contained little manure, and were only applied to the worst part of the field, covering about one-third of its surface. The wheat was Spalding's Prolific; it came up evenly and well all over the field. It was hand-sowed with lime early in February to the extent of about 24 cwt. of dry lime on the acre. In order to ascertain the value of lime, and the proper quantity, I had the field uniformly covered with it, except one land, which was left entirely without, and the headlands, which had one three, the other six times as much lime put upon them as any other part. The field was also dressed with a chemical manure of the following ingredients on the 16th March, costing:--

1 1/4 cwt. nitrate of soda 0 17 6 1 " impure sulphate of magnesia 0 5 0 3/4 " silicate of soda 0 11 3 3/4 " common salt 0 2 0 1 1/4 " gypsum 0 2 0 Mixing and applying it, say 0 2 3

Total for statute acre L2 0 0

Speculating on the probability of a dry summer, I gave it an extra quantity of manure, and I think where guano is used afterwards, as it is by me, the nitrate of soda might be dispensed with, which would bring the cost to L1 2s. 6d. per acre. I should prefer guano to nitrate of soda, because of the phosphates contained in the former. At the distance we are from the sea (about thirty miles) it would seldom be necessary to apply common salt, as the gales of winter generally bring as much as is needed; but last winter we had no high winds, and I thought that where salt was applied with other chemical manures, the wheat was more luxuriant than where there was none; but owing to a misunderstanding of the instructions to that effect, the produce was not kept separate. When the chemical manure was applied, one land was left without, for the purpose of comparison. Guano was sowed on the land on the 29th March, at the rate of something less than 2 cwt. to the statute acre, one side of the field being covered with Peruvian, the other with African, and the land on which no chemical manure had been sowed was half of it covered with guano, and the other half left without anything except lime; but as it was thought desirable to ascertain the value of the chemical manure without guano, half of this patch was sowed with the chemical manure in April, after the long drought of the last spring had set in. A small patch was left without manure, to show the natural condition of the field, and to serve as a comparison with the manured part alongside it, and also with the condition of the field when the experiment commenced, 1841-2, when the unmanured portion yielded only 19 2/3 bushels to the acre. This part of the experiment, however, was frustrated by the carelessness of the men who thrashed out the wheat. The crop was a very good one throughout the field, but was evidently shorter and thinner where there was no lime, and also where guano was applied alone. It was best on the headlands where more lime had been applied. The weather was extremely favourable until the wheat was going out of bloom, but it then changed, and the crop was beaten down by the rain, in some places so thoroughly that it never rose again; and from that time to the day it was reaped (21st August), there were not more than six fine warm days. This cold and ungenial weather would, no doubt, materially affect both the quantity and quality of the crop,--the sample only being just fair. On thrashing out the crop, I find the result to be as follows:--Where the guano and chemical manure were applied, but no lime, the yield was 49 1/5 bushels of 60 lbs. per statute acre; where the land was left unsubsoiled, it was 52 1/2 bushels; when guano alone was applied, it was 42 1/3 bushels; where the chemical manure alone was applied, it was 43 1/2 bushels; where the African guano was applied, it was 45 bushels; where the Peruvian was applied, it was 52 2/3 bushels; on the headlands, where three times the quantity of lime (or 3 1/2 tons per acre) was applied, it was nearly 62 bushels; and where six times the quantity of lime (or 7 tons to the acre), it was 49 2/3 bushels. I give this last result as it was ascertained, but do not consider it conclusive, for the wheat plant on this headland looked quite as well as the other, until it went out of bloom, when from some unknown cause it was partially blighted; an irregular patch from a foot to a yard in width and extending almost from end to end of the headland becoming brown and parched, as if affected by lightning or some atmospheric visitation. With the view of making these results a little clearer to the eye, I subjoin the following tabular statement of the produce per acre in the different parts of the field:--

Bushels of 60 lbs. per statute acre.

Guano alone 42 1/3 Chemical manure alone 43 1/2 Guano and chemical manure, with 24 cwt. lime to the acre, but land unsubsoiled 52 2/3 Guano and chemical manure, but no lime 49 1/5 African guano and lime 45 Peruvian " " 52 2/3 " " and 3 times as much lime 62 " " and 6 " " 49 2/3 Average crop throughout the field 50

It may be as well to observe, that the total expense of manure, and of its application to that portion of the field which produced sixty-two bushels per acre (including the guano and the additional quantity of lime used), was at the rate of 81s. per statute acre. Deducting the cost of the nitrate of soda, the utility of which, under the circumstances, I am inclined to doubt, it would have been 63s. 6d. I consider these to be very favourable results, and as offering strong inducements to continue the experiment. I have accordingly had the land ploughed up and cleaned; and it was again sowed with wheat on the 9th inst. Having detailed the general results of the experiment, I beg to offer the following remarks upon some points in it, which seem to me to require a little elucidation. I consider the success of this experiment to be in a great measure owing to the use of soluble silica and magnesia; because, although there is an abundance of silica in the soil, my first crop showed very miserable results, the grain being ill-fed and poor, and the straw soft and discoloured, although the year 1842 was, in this district, very favourable for wheat, the month of August being singularly fine and warm; but when I combined the nitrate of soda with sulphate of magnesia, as in experiment No. 1 in 1843, but still more so when I combined it with the silicate of soda, as in No. 3 of that year, the straw became as strong, firm, and bright as need be desired; and this year when both these salts are combined with nitrate of soda, common salt, and gypsum, I have not only good and bright straw, but also an abundant crop of wheat.