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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



MANURES FOR GREEN CROPS. 



At a numerously attended meeting of the Wes- 

 tern District of Mid-lothian Agricultural Associa- 

 tion, held at Mid-Calder, on Tuesday, the 1st 

 Decemher last, Peter M'Lagan, junior, Esq. of 

 Pumpherston, in the chair, the following able 

 paper on the " Manures best suited for the Turnip 

 Crop" was read by Mr Rowat, Currievale : 



The results of a few experiments with different 

 liinds of manures are all I have to lay before you. I 

 have no historical account of the various manures 

 now in use ; nor have I anything to say of their 

 chemical properties. There will doubtless be a 

 difference in the opinions of many here as to the 

 comparative merits of different manures ; but I 

 think you will agree with me as to the necessity of 

 applying manure of some kind if we expect to raise 

 a prolific green crop. We all know that in carry- 

 ing away from the land a crop of any kind, whether 

 cereals or root crops, we are robbing the soil 

 of chemical properties which must be returned to it 

 again in one shape or other, if we would maintain 

 the land in high condition; and perhaps one of the 

 most difficult problems for an agriculturist to solve 

 is the one now before us— What is the kind of ma- 

 nure which, at the least cost, will raise the largest 

 green crop, and at the same time leave the land in 

 the best condition for the succeeding rotation ? A 

 thrifty housewife, on one occasion, presented a 

 friend who had called with skim milk cheese, bread 

 and butter, by way of refreshment. He deliberately 

 spread a slice of cheese with the butter, saying, " I 

 restore unto thee what was feloniously taken away ;" 

 and if we wish to raise luxuriant crops of potatoes 

 and turnip, we must restore to the land the chemi- 

 cal properties which previous crops had carried off. 

 Manuring land is no modern practice. It is quite 

 true some agriculturists in the present day profess 

 to grow a succession of crops for a series of years 

 on the same land without applying manure of any 

 kind— and the evidence that this has been success- 

 fully done seems so complete that we cannot dis- 

 pute it. Still, I think you will agree with me when 

 I say that even in the Lothians, which has been 

 styled " the garden of Scotland," we must apply 

 manure, and that, too, with no niggard hand, if we 

 expect to raise a crop that will cover seed, labour, 

 aud rent. In the wheat-growing districts of Cana- 

 da, where the soil is so rich that the farmers for 

 years did not require to give it manure, now, in- 

 stead of carting their manure to the river side as 

 the easiest mode of getting quit of it, they collect it 

 carefully and apply it to the land. Chemical 

 science has done much for agriculture in analyzing 

 soils, testing the manurial quahties of various sub- 

 stances, and thus guiding the practical farmer to 

 the kind of manure best adapted for the respective 

 soil and crops to which they are applied ; and yet, 

 withal, agricultural chemistry may be said to be yet 

 in Its infancy, although it has attained to the ordi- 

 nary span of human life. Yet it seems to have re- 

 ceived no attention from practical agriculturists 



until Liebig published his work on the " Applica- 

 tion of Chemistry to Agriculture." This work pro- 

 duced a considerable impression at the time 

 amongst farmers, some of the more sanguine 

 imagining that a new era had dawned upon agricul- 

 ture. Greatly increased crops were to be raised by 

 new manures, adapted to each description of grain 

 and rootcrop, atone-half the former price. But alas ! 

 we all know toour costthatever since, notwithstand- 

 ing all the aid of chemistry, manures of all kinds 

 have been gradually rising, till last season we paid 

 a higher price for them than we ever did at any 

 former period. Let me not be understood as 

 speaking lightly of the aid which chemistry ren- 

 ders to agriculturists in judging of manures. So 

 far from it, I believe that we may on good grounds 

 cherish the hope that this abstruse science will yet 

 discover for us more plentiful and consequently 

 cheaper supplies of artificial manures. Years of 

 patient analyses and experiments maybe necessary. 

 Let us be patient. 



Let us remember what chemistry has done in 

 supplying us with manures in time past. Thirty or 

 forty years ago, when turnips began to be more 

 extensively cultivated, all the farm-yard manure 

 that could be collected was found quite inadequate. 

 Bones were introduced, and with marked success, 

 especially in sharp soils. Then by the aid of 

 chemistry these bones were dissolved, and the 

 quantity formerly reckoned necessary for an acre 

 was found amply sufficient for four. But even 

 with all this multiplication of the power of manure, 

 it was found insufficient for the land under green 

 crop. Then some sixteen or seventeen years ago 

 guano was introduced, which met the desideratum 

 for the time; and now, when farm-yard manure, 

 bones, dissolved bones, guano, &c., &c., are all 

 found unequal to manure the vast extent of land 

 under green crops, I doubt not some substitute will 

 be forthcoming in the time of need. To chemistry 

 all eyes are at present directed, and I trust they 

 will not look in vain. It is but a few months since 

 that wonder-working science resolved the gas con- 

 tained in our Torbanehill coal into a liquid, which 

 I know some of you are pouring into your lamps, 

 and obtaining a good light for a half-penny a night; 

 while a wick the length of your finger will last you 

 a twelvemonth. If that eagle-eyed science which 

 detected the liquid gas in the dark coal-beds of 

 Torbanehill, and made it equal if not to the light of 

 day, at least, to a gas light more brilliant than any 

 light these dark December days can boast, is it too 

 much to expect that she will unlock the vast store- 

 houses of Nature's laboratory, and bring forth the 

 many rich fertihzers lying dormant, whether it be 

 from the enormous beds of nitrate of soda in South 

 America, or the deposits of fossil remains of whales, 

 sharks, and other gigantic monsters of the deep 

 that in some remote period of the earth's history 

 seem to have sported their short-Hved day in our 

 seas, and had their bones deposited in the south of 



