1818.] Mrs. Ibbetson on the Effect of burying Weeds. 87 



subject. Upon the whole, however, we think it is to be regretted 

 that he devoted himself so much to the formation of hypotheses; 

 and we cannot but regard him as having expended upon refined 

 speculations a large portion of the ability and exertions which 

 probably might have been more usefully bestowed upon the 

 acquisition of real knowledge. 



Article II. 



On the injurious Effect of burying Weeds. By Mrs. Ibbetson. 

 (To the Editors of the Annals of Philosophy.) 



GENTLEMEN, May SO, 1818. 



To establish facts upon the sure and solid foundation of 

 repeated experiments, and to discard all those that are derived 

 from hasty conj ecture, and which have not been regularly subjected 

 to examination, is certainly the duty of a botanist and agricul- 

 turist. That such an error as I pointed out in my last letter, 

 and now wish again to combat, should have been persisted in 

 so long, makes us mourn over the imperfection of our knowledge, 

 since it might have appeared impossible that so strange a con- 

 tradiction should have been insisted on, and by many of the first 

 agriculturists, without their being struck with the strange incon- 

 sistency of the two facts which are both admitted as true, viz. 

 that we can bury our vegetables with the certainty of their making 

 in a few months good manure, fit to nourish plants ; and that we 

 can put our vegetables into the same earth for the winter months, 

 to preserve them from decay and from the influence of the frost. 

 Thus we place them in the same ground, for the same time, and 

 in almost the same manner, both to destroy and to preserve 

 them. It is certain that we cannot be successful in both cases ; 

 and as daily experience makes us assured of the latter fact, we 

 should hence have been led to doubt the first. It is admitted 

 that a few succulent leaves will decay under these circumstances, 

 but this will not be the case even with the leaves of trees, and 

 certainly with no species of woody matter. Nor is it a greater 

 mistake or a more fatal one to agriculture, to dig up our weeds 

 at a great expense, and then replace them in the earth. A clean 

 soil is one of the first requisites for good farming; whereas we 

 do all in our power, by burying weeds and green crops, to render 

 the earth as foul as possible. 



I have in my last letter shown that no vegetable can be of 

 use as manure till it has passed through all the various steps 

 which precede decomposition. It has always appeared to me 

 that there was a strange confusion made by agriculturists in 

 comparing fresh vegetables with manure ; no two things can be 



