246 



one dollar twenty five cents per acre, besides breaking, fencing, seed, harvest- 

 ing, and marketing the crop, with a surplus remaining of some forty cents per 

 acie. 



At the risk of being considered extravagant the opinion is hazarded, that had 

 the advantages of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, been as fully underetood thirty 

 years ago as they now are, and the facilities for reaching these States been as 

 gi'eat as at present, many portions of the eastern and middle States would have 

 remained an unbroken forest, valued chiefly for its game and timber. 



MANURES. 

 From a Member of the Society. 



All substances which, when mixed with the soil, tend to fertilize it, or existing 

 in the atmosphere, can be drawn in by the organs of the plants, and thereby con- 

 tribute to the pi'ogress of vegetation, are in common language termed manures. 

 These are composed of animal or vegetable substances, or they may consist of 

 mineral matter, or partly of both. The state in which vegetable or animal mat- 

 ter exist in the soil, and the changes through which it passes before being taken 

 up by the roots of the plant, were almost entirely unknown to chemists until 

 within a few years past. Experience, however, has taught the husbandman in 

 every age, that all animal and vegetable substances mixed with the soil tend to 

 fertilize it, by affording nourishment to the plants which it produced. But 

 science has, in modern days, made known to us the truth, that the living plant 

 and the dead manure are resolvable into the same elementary substances. On 

 examining the constituents of vegetables, it is found what are their elementary 

 properties. It is evident, therefore, that the substances employed as manure 

 should also be composed of these elements, for unless they are, there will be a 

 deficiency in some of the principles of the vegetable itself; and it is probable, 

 that such deficiency may prevent the formation of those substances within it for 

 which its peculiar organization is contrived, and upon which its healthy existence 

 depends. 



Vegetable and animal manures deposited in the soil, are dissolved during the 

 process of vegetation, and the plant is nourished by so much of the manure as is 

 dissolved by water. The fluids in the leaves and roots of vegetables, absorb the 

 soluble parts of the manure, resulting from its decomposition ; and the great 

 object in the application of manure should be, to make it afford as much soluble 

 matter as possible to the roots of the plant, and that in a slow and gradual man- 



