THE SUBSTANCE OF SOIL

Stn,—I have read Sir Albert Howard's letter, and after thirty years' experience of growing crops with chemical fertilisers I want to challenge almost all his conclusions.

It is not true that the use of fertilisers makes the soil infertile and the crops more subject to disease, and there is not the slightest evidence that the consumption of the crops so grown, either by man or animals, leads to disease, as is well said by Sir John Russell in The Times of Friday, March 3rd.

Your space is valuable and I would refer you to No. VI High Fanning in C. J. Orwin's "Progress in Farming Systems," which refers to work on this farm, published in 1931. Since then the crops grown have been better and if possible healthier.

The field " Langlands " has had nothing but "chemicals," and the comparison of the first three years' yields with the last five (you have no space for more) is interesting and, I suggest, important.

1914 •••

Spring oats, 2f sacks per acre.

1915 ••

Bare fallow.

1916 •••

Wheat, 61 sacks per acre.

1939

••

Sugar beet, 13 tons 9 cwt. per acre.

1940 •••

Brussels sprouts for market, nett return £30 125. per acre.

194I

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Oats, 14 sacks ; very wet harvest.

1942 •••

Wheat, 17 sacks per acre.

1943 • .

Potatoes, over 9 tons ; not all cleared at this date.

There was no disease in the potatoes.—Yours faithfully, Northwood Fenn, Hayling Island, Hams. A. H. Becowx.