1870.] 



BROOME — ON CANADIAN PHOSPHATES. 



247 



The annexed table (No. iv.), deiived from the analyses 

 of Dr. T. Sterry Hunt,* shows how small is the proportion 

 of phosphoric acid usually existing in soils of even the best 

 quality ; and hence it arises that there already exist so many 

 partially, or even wholly exliausted soils in Canada, and 

 more especially in the Province of Quebec, which might 

 have been still yielding large returns of wheat crops had 

 they been, from the first, subjected to a rational system of 

 tillage, coupled with the judicious and periodical use of phos- 

 phatic manures. 



TABLE IV. 



Analyses op Canadian Soils, showing the Proportions op Phosphoric 



Acid Present. 



It is true that attempts have been made to utilize the 

 residua of the Newfoundland fisheries, and that Dr. Hunt 

 called attention to the subject in an Essay on Fish Manures 

 in 1857 ;t but very Httle success has been met with in their 

 employment in this country, chiefly owing to a w^ant of the 

 necessary knowledge or spirit of enterprise amongst the 

 farmers themselves. 



On proceeding to inquire into the means adopted by various 

 nations to prevent the impoverishment of their soils, it is 

 somewhat surprising to find that the great principles of agri- 

 culture, in respect to manures, were understood from the 

 earliest times, and that the practice of some, apparently less 



* Canada Geological Survey Keports, 1849 and 1851 ; also, in abridge- 

 ment, Keport of 1863, pp. 636-642. 



i Geol. Survey Keport, 1857, pp. 218-229 ; and Canadian Xaturalist, 

 vol. IV. 



