ON FALLOWING. 175 



" rather compared to a process by fermentation, 

 " than to that of respiration ; it is a change ef- 

 " fected upon unorganised matter, and can be ar- 

 " tificially imitated; and in most of the chemical 

 " changes that occur, when vegetable compounds 

 " are composed to air, oxygene is absorbed, and 

 " carbonic acid formed or evolved." 



Then why deny the presence or action of such 

 agents, to change and prepare both organised and 

 inert vegetable matter, and rendering them so- 

 luble ; and reducing them to a proper state as 

 food for plants ; when thrown up and exposed to 

 the surface by fallowing ? 



The very idea of fallowing, presupposes the 

 land intended to be submitted to the operation, 

 to be charged with vegetable matter, both orga- 

 nised and inert, by long exclusion from the action 

 of the sun, air, and light; and the earth being 

 turned up to the depth of the fibrous roots 

 of the plants, and the plants themselves being 

 severed and turned upside down, and ex- 

 posed to the effects of a drying sun &c., the 

 vitality of the whole is (as far as can be done 

 by a simple operation) destroyed, and their sub- 

 stance, with that of the before, inert matter, is 

 exposed in the manner best adapted for oxydise- 

 ment, or the production of sugar ; which in all 

 cases is proved to be not only the most soluble, 

 but the state most productive of carbonic acid. 



