66 AGRICULTURE. 



ground as manure has been sufficiently indicated, 

 and it is now only necessary that we mention the 

 plants best calculated for this purpose. At the head 

 of these we place buckwheat, as well on account of 

 cheapness as effect : cheapness, because the price of 

 the seed, which is the only additional expense, is 

 below consideration ; and effect, because this plant, 

 while growing, is, from its umbrageous form, a 

 great improver of the soil, both by stifling weeds 

 and preventing evaporation ; and, when ploughed 

 into the ground, none decomposes more rapidly, 

 nor has any a more powerful effect in keeping the 

 earth loose and open to the action of light, heat, 

 air, and moisture, all of which are indispensable to 

 vegetation. " I know no plant," says Rozier, the 

 great French agriculturist, " that furnishes a better 

 manure, or which is sooner reduced to vegetable 

 mould, than buckwheat." When cultivated with 

 this view, the usual quantity of seed ought to be in- 

 creased, and the time of sowing hastened, so as to 

 enable you to have two crops of manure the same 

 season, and before the sowing of wheat. 



The lupine (one of the leguminous family) has 

 been long and profitably employed as a manure in 

 Spain, Italy, and the southern province of France. 

 Columella directs that " it be sown in September, 

 about the equinox, so that it may attain, before 

 winter, a growth that will enable it to resist wet and 

 frosty weather, which it particularly dreads." I 

 need not remark that these directions are not cal- 

 culated for this climate, and that the seed-time for 

 the lupine here is the 20th of May. The properties 

 which recommend it as a manure are nearly the 

 same as those which belong to buckwheat. It is a 

 quick grower, and has numerous, large, and succu- 

 lent leaves. While growing it subsists principally 

 upon the air, and, when buried, decomposes entirely 

 and rapidly. 



The pea tribe has the next place in this list ; but, 



