During the growing season the field affords striking evidence of the influence of different manurial dressings.
The formation of nitrides and cyanamides by actions of this kind and their easy conversion into ammonia is a useful method for fixing the nitrogen of the atmosphere and rendering it available for manurial purposes.
River water, especially that which has received town sewage, or the drainage of highly manured land, would naturally be considered most suitable for irrigation, but excellent results are obtained also with waters which are uncontaminated with manurial matters, and which contain but 8 or io grains per gallon of the usual dissolved constituents of spring water.
Should it be thought that the traces of the more valuable sorts of plant food (such as compounds of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash salts) existing in ordinary brook or river water can never bring an appreciable amount of manurial matter to the soil, or exert an appreciable effect upon the vegetation, yet the quantity of water used during the season must be taken into account.
Over and above the great advantage arising from the opportunity which the growth of root-crops affords for the cleaning of the land, the benefits of growing the root-crop in rotation are due (1) to the large amount of manure applied for its growth, (2) to the large residue of the manure left in the soil for future crops, (3) to the large amount of matter at once returned as manure again in the leaves, (4) to the large amount of food produced, and (5) to the small proportion of the most important manurial constituents of the roots which is retained by store or fattening animals consuming them, the rest returning as manure again; though, when the roots are consumed for the production of milk, a much larger proportion of the constituents is lost to the manure.