434 History of the English Landed Interest. 



The good of all these laboratory experiments was at once 

 evidenced by the increased fertility of the soU. Portable 

 manures of every description came largely into use. Ground 

 bones, coprolites, superphosphate of lime, Peruvian, fish and 

 home-made guanos, all helped to supplement the manurial 

 products of the holding. Farmers, however, diverted from 

 one extreme only to proceed to the other, began to purchase 

 in considerable quantities nitrate of soda, ammonium sulphate, 

 and other nitrogenous fertilisers. The earth thus stimulated, 

 for a time produced abnormally fertile crops, but became ex- 

 hausted as soon as the forcing effects of these manures ceased 

 to invigorate her. A celebrated old agriculturist warned 

 us some twenty-five years ago that the time was not far dis- 

 tant when nitrate of soda and other manurial stimulants of a 

 similar nature would be avoided by prudent husbandmen as 

 completely as dram-drinking is by all individuals who have 

 any regard for their health, and his prophecy has long since 

 been proved to be true.^ 



" Since the return of comparative prosperity," writes Mr. 

 Bacon in 1844, " the principal improvement has been in the 

 increased use of artificial food for fattening, and by the appli- 

 cation of artificial manures, principally bone-dust, animalised 

 carbon, oil cake, nitrate of soda, and saltpetre, and by a more 

 liberal use of rape cake, indeed to an almost indefinite extent. 

 The effect of the first has been to enhance the quality of the 

 farmyard manure from twenty to forty per cent, at least, 

 while the sj^stem of feeding sheep on the land with oil 

 cake has increased the value of the " teathe," and brought 



absorptive powers of the fungous growths on the roots of leguminous 

 plants, these ci'ops do obtain thus a portion of this food, and that 6 lb. 

 or 8 lb. per acre can be supplied by nature through the agenc\' of the 

 thunder storm ; but these discoveries only urge the chemist onward. 

 "When we ascertain how we can save 6(7. per lb. in nitrogenous manures 

 bj' utilising without expense their equivalent in the atmosphere, there 

 ■will be a fresh era of prosperity' for English agriculture. 



1 I am advised by a farming friend, who is no mean chemist, that I 

 am as a Land Agent naturally biassed on this subject, and that nitrate 

 of soda is not the dangerous tool in the hands of the tenant farmer 

 which I represent it to be. I however adhere to my statement. 



