THE FARMERS* REGISTER. 



401 



of a rotation which would thrive on those ingre- 

 dients of the soil which were not exhausted, till 

 the potash could be restored. But tossed as the 

 redoubtable knight was on the horns of the Got- 

 tingen bull, he had hardly regained his Ceet, when, 

 nothing daunted, he throws down the gauntlet to 

 one or the proscribed Frenchmen. I had staled 

 in my reply, u|)on the authority of Liebig, that 

 JVlacaire-Pruicep had proved by experiment thai 

 beans wither in the water in which the same spe- 

 cies have grown until the excretions colored it 

 brown, whilst corn plants grow vigorously in the 

 liquid, and the brown color diminishes sensibly 

 with the growih o( the plant. I explained it by 

 the fact that beans led largely on the phosphates, 

 while corn requires scarcely any ; and ! then ask 

 iC it is not clear that at the lime the liquid was 

 rendered unfit for the support of beans, it siill 

 retained a capacity for producing corn, and thai 

 this corn actually led on the exudations of the 

 beans 7 And how did you respond? What 

 were the means employed by you to extricate 

 yourself and theory fmni the dilemma in which 

 you were involved 1 Let me beg of you, reader, 

 before we advance a siep fan her, to contemplate 

 for a moment the embarrassing predicament in 

 which the agile Frenchman has placed the Hen- 

 rico champion. With the Frenchman's small 

 sword run directly through his vitals, and pinned 

 against the wall, he looks lor all ihe world like a 

 preserved subject ofentomology — a [losition which 

 1 am sure you will at once admit to be singularly 

 striking and piciuresque. In this altitude of con- 

 straint and disadvantage it would be unreasonable 

 to expect a very vigorous or efficient defence, or 

 indeed any resistance at all. Instead however of 

 yielding unconditionally, and magnanimously ac- 

 knowledging himself a dead man, he resorts to 

 another ol those ''rwses da guerre,'" for which he 

 expresses such unqualified admiration. He sees 

 it is idle to contend against the Frenchman's 

 small sword, and he enters a solemn protest 

 against is use ; denounces it as illegitimate, as too 

 slender, too sharp, too elaborately polished, and 

 too difficult to be parried. But to drop the figure, 

 for I can't reconcile it to my feelings of humanity 

 to keep you exposed in your impaled condiiion, 

 longer than is necessary : to be plain, then, you 

 object to the inference I'rom this experiment of 

 Macaire-Princep, because you class it with those 

 experiments of the learned which you term foole- 

 ries ! This, it is true, Mr. Turner, would be a 

 very summary and perhaps admissible mode of 

 disposing of ihe facts, if the blow had been dealt 

 by the giant arm of a Newton, but # # * * 

 The experiments which satisfy the philosophic 

 mind of Macaire-Princep, and which are en- 

 dorsed by the searching and vigorous intellect of 

 Liebig, and which are concurred in by the scien- 

 tific world generally, to be unqualifiedly de- 

 nounced by the Rev. Jesse Turner as fooleries I ! 

 Surely, Mr. Turner, you must be a bad illustra- 

 tion of your own theory of the salutary influence 

 of age in begetting caution and modesty. Your 

 loose, boyish observation, of the successive crops 

 of cotton in your mammy's cotion patch, behind 

 the kitchen chimney, is to be received as a fact to 

 influence this interesting question, (and 1 didn't ob- 

 ject, as far as it went,) while, forsooth, the labored 

 and carefully digested experiments of the first phi- 

 losophers of the age are to be decried and cast aside, 

 Vol. X.-51 



as the dross of learning and the fooleries of science. 



A lew more remarks, and I will bring to a close 

 what I have to say by way of replication to Mr. 

 Turner's rejoinder. 



Mr. Turner says he has made his strictures upon 

 my reply " with no unkind or even indignant feel- 

 ings," ae though he had indulged a most creditable 

 and undeserved forbearance towards me. This 

 claim ng credit for not being indignant at my reply, 

 in which I endeavored studiously to avoid every 

 thing calculated to wound, and, to make "assur- 

 ance douhly sure," appended in a note some very 

 complimentary remarks to him, was the first indi- 

 Cciiion to me of the temper an'd feelings which had 

 impelled hie pen. I had not proceeded much far- 

 ther, however, before the cloven loot was distinctly 

 visible. Entering the field ol conjecture, he says 

 he is not certain, but he suspects I am a young 

 man, and makes it the occasion of the following 

 very poliie and complimentary reflection : " I 

 like," says he, " to see ardor and boldness in 

 youth, but the gentleman will excuse me (or say- 

 ing that these qualities usually give place, in alter 

 ajje, to caution and modesty.^' I am sure my old 

 schoolmates, the Messrs. Seiden of Westover and 

 Hanover, whose sensible contributions to agricul- 

 ture I have the pleasure of reading occasionally, 

 but whose laces 1 have not seen, but lor a mo- 

 ment, in the last twenty-five years, will be greatly 

 surprised to find me metamorphosed into a youth. 

 I am only sorry that the suspicion of the gentle- 

 man is not belter founded, and that he should 

 have thought it necessary to assume the fact to 

 create the insulting inference of periness, Ibrward- 

 ness and impudence in my assault upon his the- 

 ory. It was a poor salvo to say that the style of 

 my reply evinced the " scholar and gentleman," 

 when you had discharged upon m)' head the vials 

 of" your wrath and ridicule. After your gratui- 

 tous consolaiion, that 1 would improve in modesty 

 as 1 increased in years, you complain of my doing 

 you iiijusiice in several particulars. This com- 

 plaint, however, being utterly groundless, and 

 adopted by you merely as an apology lor your un- 

 warrantable strictures, requires no other reply than 

 the scriptural injunction, that you should take the 

 beam out of you own eye, belore you complain of 

 the mote in mine. W. M. Pkyton. 



SORREL APPARENTLY NOURISHED BY MARL. 



To the Editor of tlic Fanners' Register. 



August 24th, 1842. 

 My attention, has lately been called to a fact, 

 which has surprised me very much, so much in- 

 deed as to make me very desirous to hear your 

 opinion on the subject, as well as ihat of some 

 ol' your correspondents who have most expe- 

 rience in the use of marl. The fact is this : my 

 nephew, Mr. K. M. T. Hunter, has been marl- 

 ing his land for two years past, to a considerable 

 extent, and nearly all the piles deposited during 

 the winter and spring months were covered by 

 midsummer with a luxuriant growth of sorrel ! 

 This has happened both years on each of his two 

 farms, although the field on one of them, upon 

 which the marl was deposited this year, has no 



