on from year to year exhausting the available supply of 

 mineral food in the soil and supply either nothing or 

 perhaps vast masses of manure produced by grass fed 

 cattle or perhaps merely weeds leaves of trees grown 

 on the spot, without carrying out mechanical operations 

 calculated to favor complete decomposition ; does it not 

 appear probable that the plant must not only be starved 

 but actually poisoned and its vital energy must suffer f 

 The want of the mineral constituents has no doubt altered 

 the condition of the soil, has deprived it of its powers, and 

 the presence of the partially decomposed matter applied 

 can only tend to cause absolute injury by its vitiating 

 properties- The tropics are celebrated for the most violent 

 alternations of temperature. Four months rain and six 

 months fierce sun immediately after must be considered 

 as proof of this statement. Hot drying winds during 

 the day and cold dews at night are of frequent occur- 

 ence. The plant has to stand all this and may be sur- 

 rounded both in, and out, of the soil, by the vast masses 

 of semi-decomposed matter without perhaps any of those 

 conditions calculated to assist the necessary chemical 

 changes, or may be acted upon by noxious acid vapors aris- 

 ing simply from faulty condition of the soil, Must not all 

 this be to the plant what ill drained cities are to man ? 



Land that has been smpeffically worked and long ex- 

 posed to atmospheric action always gets covered with moss 

 or creeping weeds, loses its granular form, and becomes 

 clogged. The soil after a time becomes cold and surcharged 

 with all sorts of acidity and noxious gases. Decomposition 

 of organic matter is checked and " humus" is formed and if 

 such is of the insoluble kind the plant has to eke out a 

 wretched existence surrounded by a clammy mass of soil and 

 organic matter in a form alone favorable for the formation 

 of pernicious combinations. It becomes preyed on naturally 



