The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-04-19 00:00:00

2gricult tat

WEEDING SEED CROPS.

As regards the prospects of the present year's crop our
Own olwerrations would lead to the conclusion that
odilion have the injtiries which early frost indicted been
more thoroughly repaired than during the past month,
clovers especially tillering remarkably well, and rye-
gr...,-es showing the good effects of A mild season. There
is, hwy r, one circumstance in the " secds " of this
year which more than in any previous Season that we
can recollect has been productive iif much mischief. We
refer to the quantity of cereal grasses, with which they
are everywhere intermixed, and which, posaessing leaves
so much larger and growing PO much taller, is in "seeds"
a weed of a very destructive kind. We have this week
observed wow barley, the remains of last year's crop,
more than a foot high, with unusually broad flags over-
shadowing the clover crop, and it is needless to say
that where this is the case to any great extent the crop
is much injured. If we inquire into the causes that
have led to this to A greater extent this year than
usual, we shall doubtless find that the good crops of
corn of last season, and the circumstance that wheat and
barley were ripened almost together had caused much
grain to be shed in the hurry of getting it together, and
the subsequent mild weather has augmented a growth
which a harder winter than the one we have experienced
would almost have prevented. This question is inte-
resting as showing how one crop may heroine a weed to
its successor, and therefore how much care should lie
exercised in harvesting the previous crop, so that as
little shed seeds should be left aim possible. It is not
perhaps very easy to joint to a remedy for cases of this
kind, though its neces,ity must be evident, still even
now much may be done by the scythe to destroy
the interloper. While upon this subject let us offer a
Few remarks upon the cultivation of " seeds," if indeed
they can be said to be cultivated at all. Clover and
grass seeds are wins with the barley that has succeeded
the turnip crop, so that it is usually thought that they
succeed to • soil tolerably free from weeds; but it
should be remembered that bar:ey is not hoed, and few
farmers have not a pretty good weed admixture to
separate from the grain at threshing. And besides, it
limit be moo:lnhered that before the barley is ripe, and
even in its cutting. enough weeds are usually sown to
ensure their continuance. Supposing, however, the
seeds to have escaped this source of contamination we
are able to assert, from an examination of 30 samples of
seeds, consisting of rye-grasses and clovers the
fact that as many as eight hundred or nine hundred
thousand weed seeds are often sown with each bushel of
the crop seed ! A sum so wowlerfully large that it is
not astonishing the crop should be usually so foul.
Hence we may expect the result which we know
usually occurs, but which is not sufficiently attended to,
viz., that clover and grass are greatly injured by weeds.
We say little attended to, as we doubt whether on an
average so much as Gil. per acre is spent on the weeding
of this crop. The report from a good farmer may pro-
bably run thus :—"spudding out thistles, pulling up
docks, Lc., say Is. per acre." And from this it may be
safely gathered that little besides docks or thistles are
looked alter; indeed, many other weeds are almost
considered as • good part of the crop. If a crop he
worth cultivating at all it is worth looking after well,
and if we see weeds come up with the seed crop, as are
anxious to have them removed therefrom as (ruin any
other crop; and (coin practice and experience we can
assure those whom it may concern, that if need be, from
2s. 61. to ss. per acre for this is not thrown away; for
if such seeds be intended for hay, from 1 cwt. to 5 cwt.,
or even inure, will result from an efficient use of the
hoe and occasionally even the fork in a clover field; and
the good we may thereby do is not altogether confined
to the occasion, but if set about at the proper time,
namely the open days in early spring, all chance of
seeding is prevented, and future work will thus become
much less onerous and expensive. Gardeners'
Chronicle.

TliE CONSTITUENTE or ARTIFICIAL MANCRES.—The
supply of phosphoric acid in bones and mineral phos-
phates is inexhaustible. Almost every year brings to our
knowledge sonic new source of this substance.
Potash, though not no abundant as an article of com-
merce, is nevertheless so widely diffused that fearr of
exhaustion need not be entertained. Our supplies of
nitrogen alone are limited. The richly nitrogenous
guano' are fast being exhausted, and the time is not
very far distant when the farmer's only resources for
this element will be the refuse of our manufactories,
and the residual products (straw, excrement, kt.) of his
own produce. It is true that about one ten-millionth
part of the atmosphere is ammonia, and this is slowly
absorbed by some soils, but not with sufficient rapidity
for the demand of cereal crops, while oil the other hand
such are the laws of diffusion that the ammonia to
many soils is dissipated in the air. The labour of col-
lecting bones and importing mineral phosphates, and
grinding them, and of bringing together the materials,
&c., for the manufacture of sulphuric acid to dissolve
them, together with that of transporting the super-
plioaphate formed into all parts of the country, consti-
tute the must serious element in the conditions that
make phosphoric acid iuiportant to the farmer. Potash
is no less important as regards the labour required to
bring it within reach of cultivated crops, from its
various sources of supply. And when we contemplate
the distance of our deposits of guano, and take into con•
sideration the labour required to collect. ship, transport.
unship, and distribute over the country, we see that
with regard to our supplies of nitrogen from this source.
labour is a t serious element amongst the canard
that render nitrogen important to the agriculturist.
Whatever might he the olsiolute value of the three con-
ditions just considered, that value would have no agri-
cultural importance if this fourth condition did not
possess a value, but analysis shows the presence of a
very large percentage of phosphoric acid, potash, and
nitrogen in cultivated crops. Chemical analysis is com-
petent to give an exact knowledge of what the plant
has received and retained at the time of analysis, but it
has not yet wade clear all points in connection with
what the plant receives and evolves or excretes. It has
not yet solved the question as to the CUSS that must
be in the soil in order that the rootlets may get • full
supply at the period of the maximuutu activity of the
growth of the plant, nor lies it measured the capabilities
of time latter to get its constituents from natural sources.
Therefore we are incotupetent from a simple chemical
view of the subject to decide what is the value of the
quantity of the several manurial constituents required
by cultivated crops at the hand of the agriculturist.
Some chemists, who were labouring under an unfortu-
nate bias from pro-conceived opinions, have been unwill-
ing to adtuit tl at the substances found in plants by
analysis do not correctly express the value of the
I demand, in the soil, for those substances by the plant.
But those whose judgment is not thus unhappily
' affected, and who are aware of the facts now pre-
sented by agricultural practice, are obliged to admit,
however anomalous in our ignorance of causes it may
seem. that the quantities given by chemical analysis do
nut correctly express the dm-wands of the plant for those
substances in the soil. Thus, land may refuse to pro-
; duce more than half a crop of wheat, the application of
an abundance of all the mineral constituents found in
the ash will not give • full crop, but the addition of a
nitrogenous manure will do so. Yet this same land
may give a good crop of beans, although the latter
requires much more nitrogen than the wheat. And,
what is still more anomalous. a full crop of wheat inay
be grown after the beans. These facts have received no
satisfactory explanation.—Dr. Yugh.

DISCOVERY OP WlNiutes.—Liebig gave the greatest
scientific stimulus to agriculture by suggesting the use of
vitriol or other acids to render the phosphates soluble,
and therefore more quickly available for the nourish-
ment of the plant, which result was ilUmediatcly acknow-
ledged from its first trials in 1840 and 1841 ; the effect
of this solubility being to bring the turnip quickly past
the fly. About 1840 guano was first introduced into
England. It has undoubtedly been a great boon to
agriculturists; for, besides, a large amount of nitrogen
(the active principle of horn, soot, and other ammoniacal
manures), it contains phosphate of lime, a manuring
;irinciple of bones, some being in a soluble state, and
having therefore the properties of dissolved phos-
phtaes. Coprolites were discovered to be manure about
the same time (that is, about 1810 ) ; and though their
phosphate of lime it in a condition unadapted for solu-
tion by natural causes, by reducing them to a fine powder
and treatment with acid they are dissolved. Thus we
have opened up an amount of •ral manure of vast
extent, the discovery of which hu, happily, been annul-
Uncoils with that of a process necessary fur its proper
utilisatioa.—Gardener's Chrusick. •

lkia H. EDWARDS, SURGEON DENTIST,
-a- BOUTH-STHE ET, DOlit,H ESTER ,
(Ambited by If
till Five &Clr. J. MOORE,) at home daily from Tea
ock.
Yr. H. E. attends personally at Weymouth, at the
HOT AL BATHS, every Tuesday and Friday, by appoint-
ment, and at the residences of his patients, without
, extra charge. A unties per post ensures an interview

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