HIGH FARMING. 217 



while, can doubt the high value of Mr. Lawes's experi- 

 ments in the field, or Mr. Way's researches in the labora- 

 tory." Pusey, p. 14. 



Perhaps, however, a ray of philosophic light, to which 

 Mr. Pusey has adverted, breaks through the mist with 

 which we are environed, and enables us to assign a reason, 

 for the faith in alternate husbandry which experience has 

 engrafted in our minds. When manure is applied to a 

 crop of turnips, they appropriate the phosphorus which it 

 contains, but, for some unaccountable reason, refuse to 

 touch the ammonia. (We use the word unaccountable, 

 because, according to Mr. Huxtable, a crop of 32 bushels of 

 wheat contains only in grain and straw 96 Ibs. of ammonia, 

 whereas 20 tons of turnips and tops, which he seems to 

 consider to be an equivalent crop, contain 174 Ibs. p. 35.) 

 The ammonia, therefore, remains in the soil ready to nourish 

 the cereal crop which will so appropriately follow. If, vice 

 versa, the manure be applied to the wheat, that grain will 

 appropriate or " waste" (Huxtable) the ammonia which it 

 contains, leaving the phosphorus untouched and ready to 

 nourish the succeeding crop of turnips. 



Mr. Huxtable, however, feels none of the doubt and 

 hesitation which so much perplex Mr. Pusey. He weighs 

 out his equivalents ; 5 Ibs of ammonia on the one hand, 

 and a bushel of wheat on the other, with exactly the same 

 confidence with which he would put a sovereign into one 

 scale and two half sovereigns into the other. In the illus- 

 trative account on which we have commented, Mr. Hux- 

 table bought his ammonia from the drysalter, but he says 

 that he can manufacture it cheaper. The digestive organs 

 of animals, principally pigs, are his laboratory. Here we 

 find ourselves unwillingly, but, in order to avoid constant 

 explanations, compelled to adopt a new term nitrogen ; 

 and we must beg our readers to bear in mind, that, in all 

 the operations of which we are about to speak, nitrogen, 

 without any act of man, converts itself into ammonia, 

 adding to itself at the same time one-fourth of its previous 



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