256 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



NOTE VII. 



(^From the Farmers'' Register of Oct- 1835.) 



INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF THE FORMATION OF PRAIRIES, AND OF THE PECU- 

 LIAR CONSTITUTION OF SOIL WHICH FAVORS OR PREVENTS THE DESTRUCTION 

 OP THE GROWTH OF FORESTS. 



Introductory remarks. 



The views which will be . presented in the following pages are in part 

 founded on others which were maintained, and are considered as establish- 

 ed in the 'Essay on Calcareous Manures'— as, for example, the doctrine of 

 the existence and causes of acid and still more of neutral soils— the chemi- 

 cal power of calcareous earth to combine with and to fix vegetable or other 

 putrescent matter in soils— and that a certain proportion of lime, in some 

 form, is essential to every productive soil, and without which ingredient 

 the land would be barren, and incapable of being enriched. As the repeti- 

 tion here of the whole train of argument by which those doctrines were 

 sustained would be both unnecessary and improper, it may be permitted 

 merely to refer to the work named for these positions, as premises esta- 

 blished, and either known, or accessible to every one who may feel inte- 

 rest in the further extension and consideration of the same general sub- 

 ject, which is here designed. 



The necessity of making frequent reference to a previous and avowed 

 work, and also the having elsewhere stated the general purport of this, will 

 prohibit the writer from presenting this continuation anonymously; which 

 otherwise would have been preferable, both on account of the writer's 

 connexion with the journal in which this will appear, and because the sub- 

 feet is one v/hich will derive no support from its origin, being a matter of 

 general argument resting on facts and authorities within the reach of every 

 reader. But as these circumstances made it necessary that the piece 

 should not be anonymous, for convenience the ordinary form of a com- 

 munication to the Farmers' Register has been adopted. Whatever of oppo- 

 sition to editorial usage may appear in thete respects, it is hoped will be 

 sufficiently accounted for, and held excused by tlje existing circumstances. 

 However confident the writer may be of the main positions which he will 

 aim to establish in the following pages, he is sensible that he is venturing 

 upon a nev/ field of investigation, which is as yet unexplored— and indeed 

 almost untouched, except by those who have paid no attention to the pro- 

 blem to be solved, or of others who, with better lights of science, have fallen 

 into gross and manifest errors and mistakes. Under such circumstances, 

 he cannot expect to avoid being misled in many particulars ; and he will 

 be gratified at having such errors corrected, and the subject fully and 

 properly treated by any other person possessing better means for receiving 

 inforniation, and pursuing this interesting subject of inquiry. 



General and erroneous opinions respecting the grotvth or absence of trees on 

 land in a state of nature. 



There exists a wide-spread and strongly marked difTerence between the 

 lands of different regions of the globe, in their being covered, or not, with 

 trees, before being subjected to cultivation. But striking and strongly con- 

 trasted as are these different aspects of parts of the earth's surface, and 

 much as each kind, when a novel scene, has drawn forth expressions of 

 wonder and admiration from travellers, the causes have not been sought — 



