Essays in Natural History and Agriculture eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 232 pages of information about Essays in Natural History and Agriculture.

Essays in Natural History and Agriculture eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 232 pages of information about Essays in Natural History and Agriculture.
3 1/4 cwt. to the acre (costing 23s. 6d.), and a fortnight after I had it sowed with 2 cwt. of guano to the acre.  When the warm weather came, these manurings seemed to help it wonderfully, and it was, as I have before stated, a very promising crop; but the cold, ungenial weather we had through a great part of the summer, and the continued rain we had whilst the wheat was in flower, destroyed all the former promise:  and the manuring with guano, so far from being beneficial, was very injurious—­so much so, that I believe every shilling’s-worth of it applied to my wheat this year, made the crop a shilling worse than if nothing had been applied; and all ammoniacal manures had the same effect.  It may be asked how I know it was the guano, and not the chemical manure.  In answer to this inquiry, if made, I may observe, that I supplied two of my neighbours with the chemical manure, and they applied it without guano on very poor land, and they both assert they had never such good crops of wheat before; but everywhere in this neighbourhood, the only good samples of wheat that I saw or heard of were grown on exhausted soil.  This appears to me to be a strong proof that chemistry has a great deal to learn before it can adapt its measures to all varieties of seasons, particularly as it cannot know beforehand how the season may turn out.  If further proof be required of the injurious effect upon grain crops of ammoniacal manures in general, and of guano in particular, I may mention that in another field of wheat, sowed on the 21st December, and which did not come up until the frost broke, in March (the previous crop having been Swedes), the blade was so yellow and the plant altogether so small and sickly in appearance, that I had it manured with a water-cart from a cesspool in April.  This appeared to produce a wonderful improvement immediately, as the plant assumed a deep green and grew very fast, but when it ought to have shot, the heads seemed to stick in the sockets, the blade and straw became mildewed and made no progress in ripening.  It was not fit to cut for three weeks after the experimental field, although it was an early white wheat, and the result was a miserable crop—­far worse than the experimental field.  The instance of injury from the use of guano, I had from a neighbour, who told me he had sowed a patch of oats with it, and that they never ripened at all, and that he was compelled to cut them green as fodder for his cattle.  I had a striking proof this season of the much lower temperature required by oats than wheat, when strongly stimulated by manuring.  I had gathered an ear of wheat and a panicle of oats the previous season, which seemed to me to be superior varieties; and that they might have every chance, I dibbled them alongside each other in my garden, and determined to manure them with every kind of manure I could procure, as I had an idea that it was not easy to over-manure grain crops, if all the elements entering into the composition of the plant were applied
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Essays in Natural History and Agriculture from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.