54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ploughing of 1860 was repeated in 1861. The experiment 

 aside from this, however, is very interesting, and gives to guano 

 a very higli value for both tobacco and wheat. 



There is one important matter which this table pretty dis- 

 tinctly points out, and that is, that manure, applied in either of 

 the modes prescribed, has a value, and in some of tliem a very 

 great value. This is shown to exist even though the experi- 

 ments have covered a period of only three years, and of that, 

 only one crop of grass is taken into the account. There is 

 another influence which diminishes tlie apparent value of the 

 manure in some of the cases. We find that where the land 

 had been manured within a year or two previous to commencing 

 the experiment, the value of the manure was less per cord, 

 simply because No. 5, in such cases, gave a larger product than 

 where the land had lain in grass or pasture for some years 

 without manure. One peculiar case occurs in No. 11, in 

 which the rotation was potatoes, mangolds and carrots. The 

 unmanured plot, or No. 5, gave more carrots than cither of the 

 others, except No. 3, where there was a slight increase. This 

 exceptional case will not, however, detract from the general 

 result, from which we derive evidence that if there is profit in 

 farming at all, much of it depends upon the ability of the 

 farmer to save, make, or otherwise command, a full supply of 

 manure. Manure, we may reasonably conclude, in some way 

 renders soil fertile, and increases its power of producing valu- 

 able crops, either by acting directly as food, or in some indirect 

 manner, supplying nourishment to plants. 



There are two opinions entertained by scientific agriculturists 

 of the age, concerning the precise condition of tlie nourishment 

 imbibed from the soil. One class, analyzing the soil, and find- 

 ing in it, in all cases accompanied with fertility, certain sub- 

 stances which are products of the decay of vegetable matter, 

 which exist either alone or in combination, as acids with bases, 

 and in these different conditions, having varying dt^grees of 

 solubility, infer that tlicsc compounds are taken up by the roots 

 of j)lants, and carried into the circulation, there to be acted 

 u|)on by the power of tlie vital processes, and transformed into 

 the substance of the plant or some of its products. Another 

 class proceed by analyzing the plant, and finding that the great 

 bulk of its structure is made up ultimately of carbon, combined 



