Lois Weedon Husbandry. 31 



being thus thrown open to the action of the atmosphere, fresh 

 supplies of mineral food are constantly being liberated and be- 

 coming available to the growing plant. 



The mineral food being thus provided, and the surface of the 

 soil being always kept open, the organic elements of fertility — as 

 many term them — come of themselves. The very process by 

 which I gain the one, admits the other. Carbon and nitrogen 

 are wanted ; and the atmosphere contains them both in the forms 

 of carbonic and nitric acid and ammonia. I lay great stress on 

 the contents of the rain-fall. Not for its amount of ammonia and 

 nitric acid alone, for that has been proved, by late experiments, 

 to be insufficient for our wants ; but, for the proof which is tlius 

 gained, by easy analvsis, that these substances do exist in the air. 

 Besides the rain there is the snow, which holds ammonia and 

 nitric acid in quantities comparatively very large. And, as 

 regards the dews and fogs, they are declared to bestow on the 

 earth the richest treasures the atmosphere contains. With every 

 shower of rain, then, with every descent of the dew, every fall of 

 snow, — nay, with every breath of interpenetrating air, these 

 organic substances are brought down into the porous soil, either 

 for future use, or to be taken up at once by the unconfined root- 

 lets of the growing plant. They are brought down, I say, into 

 the porous soil ; for, if it be not made porous, and kept so, — if 

 the surface become crusted over, the treasures of the dropping 

 atmosphere still fall on it, indeed, but only to be quickly ex- 

 haled again ; while the air, with its genial and untold influences 

 for good, passes over its closed bosom altogether and is gone. 



I confine myself strictly to the fallow and crop system under 

 discussion, when I say that this atmospheric supply of nitrogen 

 abundantly meets the wants of my wheat crop ; so that, com- 

 mencing with a year's fallow, I require beyond this no more 

 natural or extraneous provision of this substance within the soil. 

 Nav, I have found that over-feeding the plant with nitrogenous 

 food is positively injurious. No report having yet been given of 

 my wheat crop for 1856, which was the eleventh unmanured 

 crop on the clay piece, I will, in order to illustrate my position, 

 refer to it here. To increase the extent of my wheat four years 

 ago, a strip, rich with the remains of former dressings for roots, 

 Avas added to the original plot ; and every year that strip, in a 

 marked manner, has yielded the worst wheat ; so much so that 

 even this last year's crop, as a whole, was somewhat damaged by 

 it in sample. The yield was upwards of 37 bushels to the (half) 

 acre, of good, saleable Lammas wheat ; and had it not been for 

 the thinner grains of the over-fed portion, the yield would have 

 been greater altogether, and the sample perfect. The produce of 



