The Farm.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 234, 2 March 1883, Page 6

The Farm.

WHEAT AND POTATO GROWING ON STEONG CLAY LAND IN 1881, WITH THE RESULTS OP OHEMICAL MANURE PRESCRIBED BY M. GEORGES VTLLE IN HIS METHOD. In April, 1881, 1 informed you that I was again testing M. Ville's method of wheat growing. You expressed a wish that I would report the result. Last week I sold the balance of the wheat, and am now able to comply with your request. The 56 acres planted to wheat with . Ville's manure produced 85 bushels of white or red wheat of fine quality, and 28| owt. of straw, on an average, per acre. By the sale of the wheat and straw 1 realised £14 2s 9d per acre. The outlay amounted to £9 Is Id per acre, as follows; —

—No farmyard manure was applied to this or the preceding crop. The result at harvest being evidently „ satisfactory, in October I again planted several fields to winter wheat with Ville's prescription, and in due time you shall near with what result. At the same time I planted several fields with the man- , ore prescribed by Dr. A. Voelcker for Mr. Front, of Sawbridgeworth. As the fields are similar in soil, condition, &c, I shall have an opportunity of comparing the results later on. The present esason having hitherto been ■■ bo exceptionally favourable, all the wheat , looks very well. . As a further test of M. Ville's assertions, I put a field to potatoes last year (half Magnum Bonum, half Scotoh Champion). The field is heavy, stiff clay on the lias, but is well drained ; and, the season being propititious, we secured a good tilth and a good planting time. The yield averaged 0 ton 8 owt. per acre of saleable potatoes. Their quality was excellent in every reBpeot, and they kept well through the winter. The potato crop of 1881 was so abundant and the winter, so mild that I was unable to obtain more than 6s 6d per Back of 2401 b. for them in the spring. I could have sold them in the autumn for 9s ' per sack readily ; but even at 6s 6d per Back they yielded .£25 18s 8d per acre, against an outlay of JBI6 14s Bd, including every expense. Wheat and potato growing in 1881 were not, therefore, financially disastrous to me ; and as the manure supplied replaced in the soil all the principles of fertility which were removed in the crops •—the nitrogen only, however, to the extent of one half—no inroad on the stock of fertility of the soil has been made. According to the received scientific teaching of the day, when, without farmyard manure and with unorthodox succession of wheat after wheat, I again planted ■ wheat laßt year, I ought to have failed ; but as I find M. Ville's method always succeeds with me, and my bailiff is convinced that it answers, I shall, for the present at least, continue my heterodox praotices. Perhaps, however, it may be that they are not unorthodox after all. In the " Journal " of the Society of Arts 1 read a lecture delivered (March 18^ by Mr. R. Warrington, on " Some Practical Aspects of Eecent Investigations on Nitrification;" and from this lecture I learn that our chemißts have now discovered that the production of nitrates in large quantities in the soil "by the action of living ferments (bacteria) extends to inorganio bodies," and " that a new and promising field of inquiry is thus apparently opened out." We now learn that" the organisms (bacteria) which affect the oxidation of organic matter are abundantly present in outface soils, probably in proportion to the richness of the soil in organic matter," but that " one material essential to nitrification —-namely, the salifiable base-^-with wMch the nitric acid is to combine, must be present, or nitrification will speedily come to a standstill," that " the oxidising power of soil must always be considerably greater in summer than in winter, and that a considerable part of the citrates produced in summer will be assimilated by the growing crops." Again, " the production of nitrates in Boil is of the greatest importance to vegetation, nitrates being the form in which nitrogen is chiefly assimilated by plants. The abundance or poverty of nitrates in ft soil thus determines, to a great extent, the quantity of crop which a field will produce. In a fertile soil the for* mation of nitrates is always in progress. It will take place most abundantly In the surface soil, as here the proportion of nitrogenous organio matter (the remains of previous vegetable and animal life) is most considerable, and the access of air most free. The production will be greatly favoured by rain ttnd by tillage, and will be far more considerable in summer than in winter. The results obtained by the anaLysis of fallow soils thus amply confirm the conclusions arrived at from a study of the waters from the drain gauges. It is quite evident that very large amounts of nitrates are produced in Boil when exposed to air and rain, and kept free from vegetation." For "produced," we should read " accumulated," because Mr Warrington has already shown that the process of nitrification is always in progress, and that the nitrates produced in summer are assimilated by the growing crops. I heartily recommend to your readers Mr. Warrington's able and learned paper —it can be purchased for od. The whole of it is of great practical value to farmers. It would seem to explain what appeared bo inexplicable in Mr Prout's continuous wheat-growing practice — the annual remove of nitrogen in larger quantities than was supplied to the soil, and yet the soil was found to be gradually improving in its stock of fertility. For the last twenty years Mr Prout re moved in his wheat crop 711 bof nitrogen per annum per acre, and only supplied 88ilbs of nitrogen per annum per acre in his ohemical manure; and yet, without farmyard manure, he has made his unorthodox system pay handsomely, and has, aooording to the independent and reliable valuations of the late Mr Thos. 0. Scott and of Mr Pinlay Dun, in that period, doubled the value of the freehold. Over a ■horter period I oan corroborate the experience of Mr Prout on my 'own .landj

learn from Mr Warrington that a hitherto unreoognised source of fertility will no longer be overlooked, and that modifiions in agricultural practice may be made greatly to the benefit of the farmer, and without any danger of damage to the interests of the owner of the soil. — Cold Clay in the Agricultural Gazette.

■ Horse and manual labour from daily labour sheets ... £8 10 3 Rent ... ; 2 3 2 , Taxes and tithes ... .. .. ... 0 7 6 Bead (2 bush.) 018 1 Ville's manure ... .. .. ..281 Total cost per acre ... £9 11