ve 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.

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