i68 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[September i, 1883. 



as showing them that such knowleilge well apiilieil is proflt- 

 ablu. It also shows them how to help thLinsclves in a 

 eompaiativoly inexpensive manner by ascertaining the tle- 

 ficlitccies of their soil and sujiplying them, and it is hoped 

 the lesson indicated will not he lost or overlooked by 

 cultivators generally. 



Having learnt that the essential elements of plants are 

 pottash, nitrogen, lime, magnesia, svJphui-, bon, and phos- 

 phorus, every cultivator in the garden and on the farm 

 can follow the advice given by Professor Jamieson — namely, 

 " chocure a small quantity of each kind of manure and 

 apply it thus : To one patch of land no manme whatever ; 

 to another patch of laud all the essential elements; and 

 to six others all the essential elements excepting one, and 

 that cxcepteil one being a different element in each case." 

 Properly there ought to be seven such partially manured 

 plots, but of the seven essential elements iron is required 

 only in traces, and soils always contain more thau enough. 

 This is what he calls making the soil analyse itself. It 

 cleanly does so sufficiently well for all practical piu-poses, 

 and two or tlu-ee years' careful trials, or even those of 

 a single favourable season, give a certainty of aim and 

 purpose to om- work such as nothing else can do. 



Although great prominence has been given to the relative 

 value of mamu'es, yet no essential detail of culture has 

 been overlooked. The trial laud was well drained first of 

 all. and then thoroughly worked to get a good seed bed. 

 This pary drainage is rim of at least equal importance with 

 the correct application of manure, for without it oiu- eiforts 

 will prove comparatively futile. Last summer I saw a 

 large field of wheat stunted in growth and of that sickly 

 yellow hue which shows unmistakeably that " something is 

 wrong below." What was it? no manure? Ko. that could not 

 be the cause, for an exceptionally heavj- dressing of forty- 

 five cartloads of farmyard manure per acre had been given 

 it. How were the drains acting? The land, a close ten- 

 acious soil, was undrained I Cold, sodden, inert, how could 

 the wheat grow in it? It did grow, but how slow and 

 feeble was that growth in comparison to what it might 

 have been had the land been drained. Let not the teach- 

 ing of this experience be overlooked. It is of importance 

 to gardeners as well as farmers. Land must be drained 

 or it cannot be fertile. i"ar lietter to incur the loss of a 

 little nitrogen by overdrainage, even though it were double 

 the quantity shown by the Rothamsted experiments, than 

 to have none at all. The land referred to forms part of 

 a large estate, and is in the hands of a cultivator who is 

 perfectly alive to the importance of drains, but he cannot 

 get them. It is, however, reasonable to suppose, that as 

 the primary importance of drainage becomes fully recog- 

 nized it will receive due and just attention as a necessai'y 

 prelude to the economical application of manures in gardens, 

 orchards, fields, and parks. — Edwaud Luckiiltest. — Journal 

 of Horticulture. 



REVIEW OF BOOK. 



{Artificial Manures: Geokges Ville. London : Long- 

 man & Co.) 

 This, the .second edition of a work famous in France 

 and America, but less known in this country, is a series 

 of lectures delivered at Vincennes some years ago by M. 

 Georges Villo, and embodies the results of that gentle- 

 man's experiments at the place named. The work is 

 characteristically French — that is to say, unbounded enthu- 

 siasm appears on every page. It has beeu said that no- 

 thing worth having can bo gaiued without enthusiasm. This 

 may be so far true, but when it acts like a runaway horse 

 it is apt to take it-s victims too far, and this, especially 

 in cxperinieukd science, has .serious drawbacks. Possibly 

 our prejudices m;iy nifiuence us, but an idea has taken 

 possession of us tliat the pre-eminently English quality of 

 the power to plod, plod on over mountains of difficulty, 

 no matter how steep the path, and over quagmires, how- 

 ever treacherous, is le.ss apt to mislead eitl'.er the plodder 

 or his di.sciples. M. A'ille thinks that though artificial 

 manures are more extensively used hi England. Frenchmen 

 are better acquainted with their action. Taking Ville 

 himself as an authority on the state of knowledge among 

 French cultivators of the soil, we think our countrymen 

 will stand a eorapari.son with favourable results. Indeed, 

 one caiuiyt imbiassedly read through the vuormous amoujit 



of collected information of experiments in scientific agri- 

 culture by Messrs. Lawes .and Gilbcit alone, to .say nothing 

 of other earnest workers, without feehng that it is indeed 

 the English who know far most on the very subject Ville 

 imagines us to be not well informed ; and we may add 

 that the knowledge gained on our side the Ohaunel is of 

 a real, solid, if of a somewhat doubting kind, and not a 

 will-o'-the-wisp born of enthusia.sm, which, we maj' say 

 frankly, is very characteristic of the book before us. 



M. Ville is the friend of the farmer. This is apparent 

 in the very preface. There is a table inserted there to 

 show that farmers pay 12s percwt. for manure, the materials 

 of which cost no more than 6s 5Jd., and which farmers 

 might have for 7s 2d if they woiUd form themselves into 

 co-operative Societies or mutual supply Associations. Manu- 

 facturers will thank neither 51. Ville nor lis for the idea, 

 but it is certainly a good one, and well worth considering. 

 The author ("against the world) is fully convinced of the 

 power of certain plants — the Sugarcane and members of 

 the Leguminosre for instance — to assimilate the free nitrogen 

 of the air. This is proved by logic instead of by scientific 

 tests. We are .shown that certain crops contain much 

 more nitrogen than is applied to them ; that the nitric 

 acid and ammonia supplied from the air cannot account 

 for more than a fraction of the increase, and are asked 

 to consider this as proof that the increase has been assimil- 

 ated from the air in the form of free nitrogen. This is 

 enthusiasm and not science. We can discover nothing to 

 show that JI. Ville has considered it necessary to ascer- 

 tain whether tlie nitrogen always present in the organic 

 remains of every soil has suffered diminution. Had this 

 been done we imagine that even M. "\'ille himself would 

 have doubted. 



Om- author is not, it appears from the following, quite 

 sure of his own assertion. He proposes that f lOO.TOO, in- 

 ternationally collected, should be offered as a prize for a 

 method of converting the free nitrogen of the air into an 

 assimilable compound, and offers to head the list with £-10. 

 Very good. But if peas, beans, clover, lucerne, &c.. already 

 do so, and for nothing — nay, give us the richest of foods be- 

 sides, the problem has been .solved ! ^^'hy then the £100,000? 

 Ammonia sulphate at Id per lb., we are told, means cheap 

 bread and cheap meat ; but if clover and beans as.similate 

 free nitrogen, why not cheap meat now? If such feeding 

 seciu'es manure rich in nitrogen and the clover remains 

 furnish more, whj' not ciieap bread now ? These questions 

 M. Ville would have some ditticulty in answering. 



It is when theories are left behind for what actual ex- 

 periments have proved that the teachings of Ville become of 

 value as the common property of mankind. Experiment- 

 ing at Vincennes with chemical manures, it was found that 

 a Uberal application of mineral manures on a soil unusually 

 deficient in the mineral food of plants, without nitrogenous 

 manures gave 18 bushels jier acre. With no manure at all 

 the yield was only 12. When niti-ogenous manure alone 

 was given, 22 bushels was the result ; but when the two 

 were combined, 50| bushels was the amount of grain per 

 acre. This experiment is illu.strated with a diagram winch 

 shows at a glance even more decidedly than figures do the 

 difference between the samples. 



In another exjieriment at Champagne 32 tons of manure 

 gave 14 bushels, but what ^'ille calls normal manure gave 

 36. On a sandy soil, which without manure at all gave 

 ouly 2J bushels, and with I C tons of farmyard m.anure Sj, 

 chemical manure gave 31 bushels per acre. An instance 

 is given when in Italy on poor laud a large quantity of 

 manure gave from 9 to 11 bushels, but VOle's mixture gave 

 from 27i to 33 bushels per acre. Almost all of these ex- 

 periments have been made on land of a poor description ; 

 but. unfortimately, most of the land in Engkand, as well as 

 in France, afipears to be in this condition. On richer soils 

 equally striking results need no*^ be looked for. but, taking 

 the land as a whole, there is reason in the asspi-tion that 

 the proper use of chemical manures would render England 

 and France independent of America. Startliug though such 

 an assertion may appear, it is less so when we consider 

 that millions of acres are idle, nr afford a scanty pastiu'age 

 only, and yet are capable of raising good crops by the aid 

 of manure, and that more thau one-half our land yields 

 only half what it might, and even the best seldom a 

 full crop. 

 Tables ore profusely giveu shewing that perfect mauurg 



