

FERTILE SOILS CONTAIN ORGANIC MATTER. 89 



acquired, but the spirit and love of it are awakened and 

 encouraged in his mind. 



4. Can mineral or saline substances , applied alone, be depended 

 upon as manures for our cultivated crops, on the generality of 

 soils ? 



This question has been forced upon the attention of practical 

 men during the last two or three years, in consequence of the 

 broad assertions made by some writers upon the subject, whose 

 knowledge of practice was not sufficient to enable them to take 

 into consideration all the points which the question involves. It 

 has also become an important economical question, because of 

 the vaunted universal virtues of many so-called inorganic or 

 purely mineral and saline manures which are now offered for 

 sale, and the purchase of which has been a cause of frequent loss 

 to the rent-paying farmer, on whose land and crops they were 

 by no means suited to produce a profitable effect. 



There are two facts which I think will guide us to a safe 

 general answer to the question, Whether mineral manures 

 alone are to be depended upon as fertilising substances ? 



1. All fertile soils, in every part of the world and in every 

 climate, are found to contain a notable quantity of organic 

 matter, either animal or vegetable. And although the fertility 

 does not depend upon, and is not proportional, therefore, to the 

 quantity of this organic matter, as is seen in the case of peaty 

 soils, but rather upon the chemical state in which the organic 

 matter exists, yet it appears certain, as the result of universal 

 experience, that animal or vegetable matter must be contained 

 in sensible proportion in every soil from which good crops are 

 to be reaped without any further addition. 



2. Plants, as we have seen, consist of an organic and a 

 mineral part, and live partly on organic and partly on mineral 

 food. Of this organic food, they draw a portion directly from 

 the soil. Chemical physiology, therefore, confirms the results of 

 experience, that, to produce good crops, a soil ought to contain 

 a proper quantity of available organic matter. 



Now from these two facts it clearly follows, that a manure, 

 whether natural or artificial, which shall, in all circumstances 



