THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 585, 16 July 1913, Page 2

THE RURAL WORLD.

EFFECT OF LIME ON MANGOLDS It is eenera!ly known that while applications of common salt act very favourably on the growth of mangolds, or. the other hand dressings of lime decrease the crop. This fact received striking confirmation from experiments conducted at Coekie Pari:, Northumberland, Experimental Station. A portion of «-aah cf the six permanent mangold plots received two cwt. common salt ner applied in the drills at tha time of sowing the crop. The ' average results or the six plots were: —No eait plot?, 21 tons 6 cwt. per acre: with esll, -8 tons 3 CvVt. per acre. - Then as to lime, the results snow that this sufcstar.ee decreased the macgold crop in the average by neariy two and a half tons in end by over two and a half tana in .liiOT, while lime mud decreased the crop by six and three-quarter tons in liJOii, and by over three long in 1007. As was to be expected, I'.me decreased the mangold crop to the largest extent when basis siag was applied, and fiuparphospate had the same eli'eer, although to a less extent. The lime dressings were mi.;;ed with the soil before the land was drilled lor mangolds in 100(5. The average results of the picts were as follows: No lime 31. tons to the acre in 1006, and 23.2 in 1907; two tons lime, *28.1(>A —20.10; four tons lime mud, 1 24.8.V--1 i..

MANURING OF GKAS LANDS. According to a paragraph ;n the British Board of Agriculture Journal the experiments reported in Bulletin IV. ol the University College, Reading, were iliustrnio iho influence of the chief artiiicial manures wlien used singly ami in combination, and alio to determine what is the most efficient and most ejononim.nl dressing to apply to the grass land of the county. The trials have been made for two or three years at eighteen centres, and are being continued. On the average during three years the complete dressing of artiticial man-urea—-viz., lewt nitrate of soda, scwt. basic salg, 2cwt kainit—has produced the heaviest crop of hay, 2 tons 11 cwt; Id loads of dung come next, pro ducing 1 ton lUcivt. Other plots received single fertilisers, or the abovementioned mixture with one of the ingredients omitted. Professor Percival observes that "there is no comparison between the quality obtained by the use of dung and [that by the use of artificial manures. The herbage on £the dung plots is of a coarse low-grade quailty, while that on the complete manure crop, or the others where slag is used, is of superior value, being largely composed of clover and other leguminou3 plants, along with the liner grases of etter feeding quality."