eks 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
in due proportion to each other, and I also wished to ascertain
whether wheat and oats would thrive equally well with the same
sort of manuring. I accordingly limed the land soon after the
wheat came up, and in March I applied silicate of soda, sulphate
of magnesia, gypsum, common salt, and nitrate of soda. A fortnight
after this I applied guano, then bones dissolved in sulphuric
acid, then woollen rags dissolved in potash (the two latter in
weak solution); and the consequence was, that I don't think there
was a single grain in the whole parcel--at least I could not find
one--the straw was no great length, and the blade much discolored
with mildew, whilst the oats were seven feet high, and with straws
through which I could blow a pea, and large panicles, although
the oat was not particularly well-fed. The inference I have drawn
from these experiments is, that as far as is practicable the
manuring should be adapted to the temperature, but as this is
obviously impossible in a climate like ours, the only way is to
rather under than over manure, and to apply no ammoniacal manure
to the wheat crop, or at all events very little; for although
guano was beneficial to wheat when used in conjunction with
silicates, &c. &c. in 1844, yet the injury it did in 1845 may very
fairly be set against that benefit. I should feel obliged if any
of your readers who may have tried the experiment of manuring
grain crops with guano, the last season (1845) would publish the
result as compared with a similar crop without such manurin