THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 67 



As a matter of fact, if we put aside those gardeners 

 who chiefly cultivate the so-called primeurs straw- 

 berries ripened in January, and the like if we take 

 only those who grow their crops in the open field, and 

 resort to frames exclusively for the earlier days of the 

 life of the plant, and if we analyse their system, we see 

 that its very essence is, first, to create for the plant a 

 nutritive and porous soil, which contains both the neces- 

 sary decaying organic matter and the inorganic com- 

 pounds ; and then to keep that soil and the surrounding 

 atmosphere at a temperature and moisture superior to 

 those of the open air. The whole system is summed up 

 in these few words. If the French maraicher spends 

 prodigies of labour, intelligence, and imagination in 

 combining different kinds of manure, so as to make 

 them ferment at a given speed, he does so for no pur- 

 pose but the above : a nourishing soil, and a desired 

 equal temperature and moisture of the air and the soil. 

 All his empirical art is devoted to the achievement of 

 these two aims. But both can also be achieved in an- 

 other and much easier way. The soil can be improved 

 by hand, but it need not be made by hand Any soil, 

 of any desired composition, can be made by machinery. 

 We already have manufactures of manure, engines for 

 pulverising the phosphorites, and even the granites of 

 the Vosges ; and we shall see manufactures of loam as 

 soon as there is a demand for them. 



It is obvious that at present, when fraud and adultera- 

 tion are exercised on such an immense scale in the 

 manufacture of artificial manure, and the manufacture 

 of manure is considered as a chemical process, while 

 it ought to be considered as a physiological one, the 

 gardener prefers to spend an unimaginable amount of 

 labour rather than risk his crop by the use of a pom- 

 pously labelled and unworthy drug. But that is a social 

 obstacle which depends upon a want of knowledge 

 and a bad social organisation, not upon physical 



