“It takes,” said the Deacon, “about 5 lbs. of ammonia to produce a bushel of wheat. And according to this, 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano, guaranteed to contain 10 per cent of ammonia, would give an increase of 10 bushels of wheat.”
“This is a very interesting matter,” said I, “but we will not discuss it at present. Let us continue the examination of the subject. I do not propose to make many remarks on the tables. You must study them for yourself. I have spent hours and days and weeks making and pondering over these tables. The more you study them the more interesting and instructive they become.”
The sixteenth season (1858-9), gives us a little over 18¼ bushels on the unmanured plot. On the plot manured with 14 tons farmyard manure, 36¼ bushels; and this is the highest yield this season in the wheat-field. Mixed mineral manures alone, (mean of plot 5a and 5b), give 20½ bushels.
25 lbs. ammonia (100 lbs. ammonia-salts), and mixed minerals, give 25¼ bushels, or an increase over minerals alone of 4¾ bushels.
| 50 lbs. ammonia, an increase of | 9¼ bush. |
| 100 ””” | 14 bush. |
| 150 ””” | 14 bush. |
| 200 ””” | 14¼ bush. |
The season was an unfavorable one for excessive manuring. It was too wet and the crops of wheat when highly manured were much laid. The quality of the grain was inferior, as will be seen from the light weight per bushel.
The seventeenth season (1859-60,) gives less than 13 bushels per acre on the unmanured plot; and 32¼ bushels on the plot manured with 14 tons farm-yard manure. This season (1860), was a miserable year for wheat in England. It was both cold and wet. Mixed mineral manures, on plots 5a and 5b, gave nearly 16 bushels per acre. 25 lbs. ammonia, in addition to the above, gave less than 15 bushels. In other words it gave no increase at all.
| 50 lbs. ammonia, gave an increase of | 6 bushels. |
| 100 ”””” | 11¾ bushels. |
| 150 ”””” | 15¼ bushels. |
| 200 ”””” | 16¾ bushels. |
It was a poor year for the wheat-grower, and that, whether he manured excessively, liberally, moderately, or not at all.
“I do not quite see that,” said the Deacon, “the farm-yard manure gave an increase of nearly 20 bushels per acre. And the quality of the grain must have been much better, as it weighed 3½ lbs. per bushel more than the plot unmanured. If the wheat doubled in price, as it ought to do in such a poor year, I do not see but that the good farmer who had in previous years made his land rich, would come out ahead.”