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ner, so that it may be entirely consumed in forming its sap and organized parts. 

 Water is apparently the medium by which all the matter of nutrition, in whatever 

 form, is conveyed into the roots of plants, and without which, accordingly, vege- 

 tation is never known to take place. Therefore it is, that the substances which 

 form animal and vegetable manures, before they can be made available as nutri- 

 ment to plants, must be rendered soluble in water. 



This explains the reason why frequent stirring of the ground by the plougli 

 or hoe, aids the growth and cultivation of the plant. It exposes to the action of 

 the atmosphere the decomposed organic mr.tter of the soil, which becomes soluble 

 by air and moisture, and thus becomes food for plants. 



In supplying animal and vegetable substances to the soil in a decomposing state, 

 we, in truth, supply the same substances which enter into the composition of the 

 living plants. The right application of those substances, or manures, to plants, is 

 very important, so that they may receive all the benefit of their fertility. Unfer- 

 mented manures spread upon the surface, may produce little or no nutriment to 

 the plant. Fermented manui-es, if spi-ead upon the land's surface, may have lost 

 during the process of fermentation their fertilizing qualities; or if buried and fer- 

 mented in the earth, and the soluble parts thereby prevented from escaping, yet 

 may fail in their eSect on certain plants, as the beet, turnip and carrot, unless applied 

 in a putrescent state to the first stages of their growth. The potatoe requires less 

 in the first stages of its growth than the turnip. Manures should always be applied 

 as soon after it has been prepared as possible, there being a waste either in 

 retaining it too long, or in causing it to undergo a greater degree of fermentation 

 than is required. Fermentation is the means which nature employs to draw 

 from manures its nourishment for plants — without it manure has no effect. If 

 this process of fermentation takes place in the open air, unless a quantity of earth 

 is thrown over the matter in which the fermentation is going on, there is an 

 escape of the fertilizing mattter into the atmosphere. The fermentation may be 

 begun in the compost heap, but should be completed by ploughing the manure 

 into the soil. Plants have their mouths open to drink in the juices of manures 

 when decomposed in the earth. The manure heap has been justly described as 

 the farmer's gold mine. No husbandman can carry on his business successfully 

 without it. 



Eveiy farmer who attends for a moment to the difficulty of obtaining a suffi- 

 cient quantity of dung, as well as preparing what is got, will acknowledge that 

 however imperfectly the subject be understood, none is deserving of more serious 

 consideration ; yet even the most superficial observer on the common state of 

 culture can hardly fail to remark, that the evident inattention to its management 

 is such as would almost lead to the conclusion, that it was not worth the pains of 

 the farmer's care. 



