428 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
grass, and lichens which they consume, are unquestionably trre. In 
proportion to the small amount of real nourishment contained in the 
articles, the bulk consumed must be increased. ‘The stomach becomes 
distended and the visceral function overworked; the organs are enlarged 
to protuberant dimensions, producing a distortion which would be ludi- 
crous were it not pitiable. Itisaremark of military men who have been 
much with the Indians, that if they are fed much on the flesh and 
cereals and other adjuncts of the white man’s table, they pine away and 
Jead an abandoned and unhappy life, and that, confined to this fare, 
many would die as if visited by an epidemic. There is an unsatisfied 
craving within them for the rude fare of their wild life, for the coarse, 
bulky, precarious food of their younger days, for the messes of their 
tribe, however rude and unsavory they may appear to others. They 
hail, therefore, with a yell of pleasure, the opportunity to leap over the 
bounds of civilization into the wild scenes familiar to their childhood. 
THE PRESENT THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MIN- 
HRAL MANURES. 
For some year's past anxiety has been felt by cultivators of the soil in 
densely populated countries, as Belgium, France, England, and Ger- 
many, from a growing conscrousness that the ordinary farm or cattle 
manure is insuflicieut to sustain the feod growth of the cultivated land 
requisite to meet the demands of the present population, and the con- 
viction has arisen that guano does not supply that deficiency, and that 
itis not a substitute for farm manure in many situations. Agricul- 
tural chemists during this time have been experimenting with new sub- 
stances to be used as manure, either singly or as compost; their theories 
and views, as interpreted by Dr. Antisell, of this Department, are here 
presented. The high price of guano, and the knowledge that the sup- 
ply of this substance from the present source must in a few years be ex- 
hausted, have influenced manufacturers to flood the market with all 
kinds of manufactured fertilizers, many of which are of little value, 
and the most of them but poor representatives of what they purport 
to be. The overwrought and exhausted condition of many lands in 
Europe on the one hand, and the necessity for raising a sufficient food 
supply for an increasing population on the other, have produced in 
some localities, and may shortly produce in all, an agricultural crisis, 
for which at present there is no remedy. ‘The problem is, how to make 
the land produce abundant and continued crops without increasing the 
cost of food produced. This question presses very strongly on Great 
Britain and France. While the former by manufactures and commerce 
cau stave off the crisis for a time, France, with her legion of small land 
holders, and no colonial market for manufactures, is more immediately 
dependent on the soil for the support of her population. Although our 
country is differently situated, and the “struggle for life” among our 
poorer population is not so severe as in Hurope, the consideration of 
this question of obtaining fresh supplies of manure is of material inter- 
est to our people. What is the manure of the future to be? This 
question is to be solved within a few years. In old times, letting the 
land lie fallow restored it to fertility ; but then the population was small, 
and the cultivation of a few acres more or less was not felt; now, as 
the population increases and land becomes occupied, fallowing must be 
