THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



37 



rise in wages of labour hos been from 15 to 20 per cent. 

 over the previous rales ; but relative to the price of the 

 leading commodities of trade, he thinks that whatever 

 advances have taken place may be accounted for, irre- 

 spectively of the influx of gold, which has not affected 

 them in an apjireciable degree. 



We think Mr. Tooke is wrong in this conclusion, and 

 we find the proof of it in the advance of labour itself, which 

 would alone cause a rise in the price of commodities — the 

 produce of labour. Has the influx of gold had no ap- 

 preciable effect in producing the high prices of corn for 

 the last three years, when we certainly have had average 

 crops, and one (1854) far above an average ? Mr. 

 Tooke refers the advance to the influence of the laws of 

 demand and supply ; but have not these main elements 

 of commerce been powerfully aflFected by the influx of 

 gold ? Has not the consumption of all the main arti- 

 cles of life increased in every department of society, 

 especially amongst the manufacturing operatives, 

 from whom, during the high prices of bread-corn, 

 we have heard not a whisper of complaint or remon- 



strance ? Mr. Tooke, again, supports his argument by 

 the fact that, between the years 1800 and 1818 the stock 

 of gold and silver in Europe and America had received 

 an addition of 58 per cent, without any effect upon the 

 relative value of gold. But this may be accounted for 

 by the large increase of the trade of the world, as well as 

 of the populations of Europe ; both which causes would 

 acquire an increase of specie circulation to the full ex- 

 tent of that per-centage. When, however, there came 

 to be added to the usual supply a new and greatly en- 

 larged one, by which the stock is increased in nine years 

 to the extent of 50 per cent, in an accelerated and ac- 

 celerating proportion, the fact becomes certain that 

 gold has fallen in relative value, and will not purchase the 

 same amount of goods of almost any kind as it would 

 before 1848. 



We cannot go further into the question, but we ear- 

 nestly recommend Mr. Tooke's volumes to the reader. 

 He will find in them a fund of information on the various 

 topics they embrace, both novel and instructive, and even 

 entertaining. 



THE ACTION OF THE ATMOSPHERE UPON THE SOIL. 



Of the five thousand members of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society to whom its Journal is distributed, how 

 many will read Mr. Jamieson's Prize Essay " On the 

 Action of the Atmosphere upon newly-deepened Soil?" 

 And, of those readers who may have courage to grapple 

 with its mass of scientific details, how many will close 

 their perusal with a clear perception of the ways in 

 which fresh soil is affected by the atmosphere ? Its 

 sixty-seven pages of elaborately searchcd-out facts and 

 principles — philosophical, chemical, and geological — 

 are crammed full of learning j comprising no less than 

 fifty-four tabulated statements, and citing as authori- 

 ties no fewer than seventy-seven British and eighty- 

 nine French, German, and other foreign philosophers 

 and experimenters. The author's knowledge of the 

 natural sciences, and his acquaintance with foreign 

 literature on the subject of agricultural chemistry, cer- 

 tainly inspire us with respect and admiration ; but we 

 cannot helji feeling that the practical conclusions from 

 all this immense research and amassed information are 

 comparatively meagre and insignificant. In these days 

 of pressing business and rigorous " division of labour," 

 even in topics of study, the agriculturist has little time 

 to ponder over " molecules of ether," " oligoclase and 

 zeolite," the mysteries of chemical nomenclature and 

 all sorts of abstruse technicalities, in order to make out 

 for himself the bearing of all this weai-isome cleverness 

 upon his own field-culture. It is, indeed, much to be re- 

 gretted that Mr. Janiieson has not followed the exam- 

 ple of Dr. Voelcker, and some other scientific writers 

 in the Journal, who at the close of their treatises give 

 us a concise intelligible summary of all the deductions 

 which their investigations afford of actual use and in- 

 terest to the farmer. 



We had looked forward with large expectations to 



the publication of this essay, hoping for a lucid sum- 

 mary of the manner in which exposure to atmospheric 

 influences effects an increase of fertility in soil ; the 

 advantages or otherwise of deepening different descrip- 

 tions of land ; the comparative merits of subsoil stii-ring 

 and of trenching ; of deep and shallow drainage ; the 

 necessity for occasionally inverting the staple soil ; the 

 propriety of fallowing; the possibility of revolutionizing 

 our systems of cultivation by minuter and more inces- 

 sant tillage— as well as to various points in relation to ro- 

 tations of cropping, covering and exposing the surface of 

 land in difi"erent seasons ; and, again, nitrogenous and 

 mineral manuring, compared with fertilizing by aeration 

 and the admission of rains, gases, &c., by tillage. Let 

 us now endeavour to outline an idea of what we found. 



The first part of the essay takes into consideration 

 the solar influences; the next treats of the action of 

 the atmosphere ; and then the ingredients of the soil 

 are examined, with a view of showing how they are 

 likely to be affected by the agencies described. On the 

 present occasion we have room only for a notice of the 

 first of these divisions. 



The sun's rays are stated to possess at least four dis- 

 tinct properties : First, the calorific, or power of im- 

 parting heat ; second, the luminous, or power of impart- 

 ing light ; third, the chemical, or power of inducing 

 chemical changes ; and fourth, the phosphorogenie, or 

 power of inducing phosphorescence. Under the first 

 head we have the temperatures attained by surface- 

 soils in difierent climates and seasons, according to 

 their colour, dryness, &c. ;• from which it appears that 

 under a clear sun the ground is often very much warmer 

 than the air in the shade; and "under such a high 

 decree of heat the decomposition of the organic matter 

 of the soil must go on at a great rate, with the evolu- 



