PUTREFACTIVE CHANGES. 77 



mentation before you can get benefit from them. They must 

 undergo what is called the putrefying change, and there is a 

 round of chemical changes which fits the manure to feed the 

 plant. If you apply raw manure in the fall, those changes 

 during the cold weather are very slow : in fact, they are 

 almost entirely suspended in very cold weather ; but in the 

 spring, when warm weather commences, those changes go 

 on. There is one very curious fact, which, at the time of 

 the investigation of it, astonished me more than almost any 

 thing else (I don't know but a great many others have 

 made the same investigation, and reached the same result ; 

 but I will venture to give a little statement of my experi- 

 ence) : that fact is, that, through a wise purpose, the soil has 

 the power of attracting to itself these agencies. We do not 

 lose as much by- gaseous decomposition, which passes off, as 

 we imagine. I found several years ago, by a series of inter- 

 esting experiments, that there is in mother earth a very 

 strange attraction for these principles which are volatile. I 

 am quite prepared to say that a mass of manure undergoing 

 putrefactive change, which results in the formation of those 

 bodies which are assimilable, may stand above ground with- 

 out any special loss. It is found that the attraction is down- 

 wards, not upwards. A very interesting fact, indeed : it 

 accounts for a great many things, and it shows the wisdom 

 of some power which is beyond us in this direction. We do 

 not lose so much by the winds, the currents, &c., as we ima- 

 gine, because there is in the soil a certain power, I do not 

 know what to call it, by which these fertilizing elements are 

 attracted downwards : it is natural, and that is about all 

 we can say in regard to it. So that when you spread ma- 

 nure upon a field in the spring, when warm weather is com- 

 ing on, these changes are pretty prompt. The promptness 

 with which these changes take place depends upon moisture 

 and warmth ; and you must have moisture and warmth, or 

 else the changes will never take place, and your manure 

 would be inert ; but when these changes do take place, even 

 if the manure is above ground, the loss is very much less 

 than, I think, our farmers generally suppose. 



Mr. FLnsTT. Dr. Nichols has taken occasion to allude to 

 our Indian corn, and to its value as compared to Western and 

 Southern corn. Now, it so happens that there are careful 



