AGRICULTURE. 149 



'climate' of the soil by drainage, &c. as explained in 

 another part of this paper. 



What we understand as ' manures ' are matters which 

 contain the elements that constitute the food of plants, 

 which have served the purpose of one or more organism, 

 and having undergone combustion or decay, are in a con- 

 dition to yield up these elements for assimilation with 

 other organisms, when, being restored to the soil, they 

 meet with those conditions — mechanical, chemical, and 

 cosmic — essential to the realisation to that end. 



Associated with efficient tillage, there is no law of the 

 agricultural code more clearly defined, or more pointedly 

 insisted on as of primary necessity, than that of the resto- 

 ration to the soil of the matters abstracted from it by 

 crops, &c. ; that is, of manuring the land when there is 

 any sign of diminution of crops. The combination of the 

 pastoral and agricultural is eminently favourable for the 

 full compliance witli this law. 



It is convenient for the complete understanding of this 

 to give analyses of manures. The most generally useful 

 and efficient manure is that of the excrements of men and 

 the inferior animals, which contain in their liquid and solid 

 forms all the elements of the food on which they feed ; 

 and it follows that the higher the feeding, the richer the 

 manure. 



As it is not my intention to overcharge this treatise with 

 technical and scientific details, but simply to direct atten- 

 tion to fundamental principles and draw practical conclu- 

 sions, I confine myself to quoting only such analyses as 

 wiU suffice to demonstrate these principles, and having, in 

 this paper and in that on ' Sheep-farming,' given the analyses 

 of soils, fodder, grain, and flesh, it will not be necessary 

 to do more than quote that of the ash of an average 

 sample of farmyard manure. 



