AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 26 7 



liquid manures. Drainage will be found to compensate even for the defi- 

 ciency of solar heat in a backward summer, besides increasing the fertility 

 of the soil from year to year ; though constantly washed by heavy rains, the 

 liquid manures applied never escape through the soil, but arc invariably 

 retained by it chemically. When solid manures will be washed bodily into 

 the nearest ditches, and water courses, so that the outfalls from top dressed 

 undrained lands will invariably be found turbid, when those from the 

 richly manured with liquid will be pellucid and transparent. If farmers 

 were to examine the solid manures before they placed them upon their 

 fields, with the microscope, they would find all the fibrous portions com- 

 posing them, filled with devastating insects, and thousands of seeds of 

 injurious and unsuspected weeds. Besides all the particles that are visible 

 to the eye, must be entirely decomposed before the plant can absorb them. 

 I know this is so, from the fact that I have failed with the most powerful 

 microscope to detect the least aperture to the roots of any plants, conse- 

 quently the fact is conclusive to my mind, that no manure, ev(,n in the 

 shape of an impalpable powder can be assimilated by any plant except in a 

 liquid form. 



Besides, if land is properly drained, and cultivated with liquid manure, 

 the usual risk of injury when the season is wet, is much diminished, as the 

 superabundance of water can in)mediately run oif, and drought need not be 

 at all dreaded when an artificial shower of liquid manure is at hand. 



Thorough drainage, and command of liquid manure, will, to a great ex- 

 tent, compensate for the want of solar heat in summer, as the removal of 

 water saves heat that would be required otherwise for its evaporation, and 

 liquid manure stimulates and nourishes vegetation. The two principal 

 causes of fluctuations in crops, are deficiency or excess of moisture, which 

 we can thus to a great extent control. Lands irrigated with simple water 

 may be readily distinguished by the soft and spongy texture of the vegeta- 

 ble tissues, but that obtained by the use of liquid manure is preferred I y 

 cattle and greedily devoured. It yields prompt nourishment to the grow- 

 ing plant, saves loss by immediate passage into the soil, comes into action 

 in two months, instead of two years, as is the case with solid manure. 

 Repairs, at once, the failure of other composts, changes leaves that were 

 yellow into a beautiful green color, and is the only manure that does not 

 cause exhaustion of the land, because it not only dissolves and spreads, but 

 conveys, without loss of time, nutrition to vegetation. You farmers well 

 know, from dear bought experience, what bad results attend the expendi- 

 ture and labor of manuring fields with solid compost in dry weather, and 

 ought, by all means, to resort to liquid manure as the proper basis of cul- 

 tivation. The best time to apply it is on the first snow that falls in Decem- 

 ber, before the hard frost sets in, and the last snow in the spring, that it 

 may be ready for the roots when they first begin to grow, as, according to 

 vegetable physiology, they possess the wonderful faculty of selecting the 

 food most suitable to them, and do not take up, indiscriminately, every- 

 thing that is presented. 



