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.

* * * * *

To the same.

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.