*ii:i)c banner's iHantl)li) bisiior. 



115 



or iizoiic manures, iiiiist have got ihe carbon and 

 nitrogen of lljcir leaves, roots, ajul stalUs, from 

 tlie aliiios|ilicro ; it I'ollows llierefbro, that the 

 piiHliii-tivcneoS ul'lho (iolds eanuol he in propor- 

 liiiii witli a .-iiipply of e.arhiiiiaecoii.s ami azotic 

 siihslances, hut that the rorlihty ilepends only on 

 till! supply of those ingrodienls which sliouhl he 

 ju'oviileil hy the soil. 



The soil iloes not only serve the pujpose of 

 fixing the plants anil their roots; it participates 

 in vegetahle life through the ahsorptioii of cer- 

 tain of its elements. If these elements are pie- 

 sent in snfficient (piantity and inappropriate piu- 

 portions, the soil ronl.iins the conditions \vhi(di 

 render the plant capahle of ahsorhing carhnnic 

 acid and annnunia lioni the air, -.vhich is in an 

 inexhaustihle storehouse for theiu, and renders 

 their elements capable of being assimilated hy 

 their (n-ganistn. 



The agricniturist iinist, therefore, conline him- 

 self to giving to the field the com[iosition neces- 

 sary to tiie development of the plants wliich he 

 intends to grow ; it must he his principal task to 

 supply and restore all the elements reipiired in 

 the soil, .'Mid not only one, as is so frequently 

 done ; the iiigrcilients of the air, carhonic acid 

 and ammonia, the plants can, in most cases, pro- 

 cme w ilhoiit mati's interfejence ; he must take 

 care to i^ive to his field that physical conditiini 

 which renders possihie and increases the assim- 

 ilation of these iimredients hy the plant ; he iiuist 

 remove the impediments whiL-h diminish their 

 elfect. 



The favorable innucnce which bone earth, 

 gy|)snm, nitrate of soda, exerciseil on the fields 

 has induced many farmers to the belief, that in 

 applyins them they can dispense with manm-ecM' 

 with the othi.'r elements of the soil ; it reqidres, 

 however, only little attention to see the j;reiit er- 

 ror of this opinimi. We observe that the effect 

 of these sid)stances is not ei]ual on all fields; in 

 one place the amount of produce is increased by 

 the lime, by the hone earth, and by pypsnm ; in 

 another coimtry, or on other fields, these snb- 

 fitances in no way fiivor vejiirtation. From this 

 arises the contradictory vie«s of farmers regard- 

 in}! these matters as tnamu'es. If one farmer 

 thiidis the liming of his fields quite indispensa- 

 ble for rendering them fertile. — another declares 

 that lime produces no effect at all. 



The reason of this difference is very simple. 

 Tl e examination ol' a soil, upon Hhich lime has 

 had no effect, shows that it was already rich in 

 this subjtance ; it fuither sho«s that its cfliict 

 extends only to those kinils of soil in which lime 

 is wanting, or in which it is found in too small a 

 quantity, or in a comlition which is not suited to 

 its assiiiiilation by the plant. Liirie especially 

 serves for resolving the silicates of .-dumina 

 (clay,) and consequently it cannot fertilize soils 

 in which clay is wanting, for instance, sandy 

 soils. It must be apparetit to every one, that on 

 the calcareous ami gypseous fiehls of Fiance 

 and England one-half per cent, of gypsum or 

 lime can have no influence .at all on vegetation. 

 This can he taid with equal Justice of bone ash- 

 .«, and of every other mineral substance serving 

 'i>r the nourishment of plants. 



If these stibstances e.\ercise a favorable effect, 

 some of the constituents of the soil or manure 

 are restored, which are indispensable to the 

 nourishment of plants, and which have been 

 wanting in the soil. If this be the case the oth- 

 er biidies, equally necessary, must be present in 

 stiflicient quantity. On a field, in wliicli sulphate 

 of lime has acted favorably, atul in which clover 

 liad been cultivated as fallow without it, the crop 

 was 2200 pounds of clover hay, in which 53 lbs. 

 of potash were removed. On the same field, 

 after it bad been gypsed, 8000 pounds of hay 

 were produced, which contained 191 pounds of 

 ])Otasli. If this potash had not been present in 

 the soil, the gypsum would have had no effect, — 

 the crop would not have been increased. On 

 fields, which are richly |)rovided with all the 

 other mineral ingredients, with the excejition of 

 gvpsmn, the latter is ap[died with the greatest 

 success. i?ut if gy|)smn is present in the soil, 

 the same effects are produceil by ashes and lime, 

 as is the case in Flanders. On fields, in which 

 phosphate of lime is wanting, bone ashes in- 

 crease the produce of grain, clover, or grass, and 

 on argillaceous soil, lime [notluces a decided im- 

 in-ovement. All these sub^tanccs act only on 

 those fields which are defective in them, and if 



the other elements of the soil are present. The 

 latter cause the former to come into action, and 

 vice versa. The larmcrs, who ihought that by 

 using lime, gypsum, hone earth, &c., they niighi 

 dispense with anim.al maiuire, very sooti ob- 

 served that their fields deteriorated. They ob- 

 served that after a third or fourth successive ma- 

 nuring with those sinijile substances the produce 

 ilecretised; that, its is the common expression, 

 the soil became tired of the mtitime, that at last 

 llie field scarcely produceil the seed. 



It is evident from tliis, what is the action of 

 the mineral elements in the soil. If in fact, in 

 the first years, the produce of the soil had increas- 

 e<l hy the application of bone ashes, or by a sin- 

 gle element of the niaiinre — if this increase was 

 dependant on the aiiiuunt in the soil ol'the other 

 mineral elements, a certain <iuaiitity of those was 

 annually taken tip by the plants and removed in 

 the harvest, and a time must at last arrive in 

 which it is exhausted by the repeated removal ; 

 the soil must become barren, because of all re- 

 moved elements, only one or the other, and not 

 all of them, ill a right proportion, have been re- 

 stored. 



The liglit proportion of the supptij is, hoioever, 

 ihe only true scicniific basis of af^ricullure. 



If we subject the fluid and sold excrements 

 of men and animals to an exact analysis, and 

 compare the elements of them according to their 

 weight, some constant relations between these 

 elements impress themtelves upon the mind, 

 the knowledge of which is of some importance. 



Jf the excrements of an animal are collected 

 with some care and left to themselves for some 

 days, their nitrogen appears to have been con- 

 verted more or less [)erfectly, into ammonia. In 

 the fluid excrements, in the urine, the salts of the 

 food, which are solulile in water, are found in 

 the I'urm of alkaline carbonates, or of snlpliates, 

 pliosphates, and other salts, with alkaline bases. 

 In the solid excrements of fa-ces, silica, if it was 

 contained in the food, earthy carbonates, and 

 phosphates, are the principal ingredients. 



The ([uaniity of alkaline carbonates bears a 

 certain proportion to the amyliim, sugar, pectine, 

 or the gum of the Ibod. Tlic mine ol'aii animal 

 which h.-is been fed with potatoes or turnips, is 

 rich in alkaline carbonates ; the potatoes, how- 

 ever, consist principally of amylum; the chief 

 ingredients of the turnips are sugar and pectine. 

 The urine of a horse, which has been fed with 

 hay aiid oals, is comparatively poor in alkalies, if 

 compared with the Ibrmer. 



It is fiirther shown, that the ammonia or the 

 nitrogen of the .Txcreuients bears a certain pro- 

 portion to the phosphates; the azote increases 

 or decreases with the quantity of the phosphates 

 in a manner that both can serve, as a measure 

 for each other, although not quite as an accurate 

 one. it is not quite accurate, because the gum 

 and the amylum also contain a certain, although 

 small, quantity of phosphate of lime, as has been 

 proved in my laboratory. 



The ammonia of the excrements is of course 

 derived from the nitrogenous substances in the 

 food ; the phosphates are likewise constituents 

 of the latter. In the composition of the food an 

 equally constant proportion exists between both. 

 A given weight of gluten or casein in peas or in 

 grain always corresponds with a certain weight 

 of |)liospliales; if the grain or the vegetable is 

 rich in those iw.ov.c. products of vegetable life, it 

 is also rich in pliosphates; if it is deficient in 

 them, the qualiiy of the latter decreases in an 

 equal ratio. 



As the amount of nitrogen in manure is a 

 measure lor its amount in phosphates, and as 

 manure contains besides these also the other in- 

 gredients of the soil which are required hy the 

 grain or by the other vegetables for their devel- 

 opment, and taken up by them from the soil, it 

 is easily conceived wli.at was the cause of the er- 

 ror in regarding the azote of the manure as the 

 principal cause of its efficacy. The reason was, 

 that th(! ammonia of the manure is always ac- 

 companied hy the mineral elements which affect 

 its nourishing qualities, because they render its 

 assimilation into the organism of the plant ami 

 iis trai.sitiiMi into a nitrogenous constituent |jos- 

 sible. Without phosphates, and without the 

 other mineral elements of the food of plants, the 

 ammonia exercises no influence whatever upon 

 vegetable life. 



If it has been shown that the fertility of the 



.soil depends on certain mineral substances ; if 

 the restoration of the fertility of exhausted fields 

 by mi-aiis of the excrements of man and animals 

 ih-pends upon their proportions of these matters; 

 if the ('fleet of ihu iiianuies iiccekr,tlliig\\\ii vege- 

 tation depends upon their proportions of ammo- 

 nia, it is clear that we can only dispense with 

 the latter when we provide nil "efficacious ele- 

 ments exactly in those |iroportion3 and in that 

 fiirm most proper for assimilation by the vegeta- 

 ble orgiinism in which they are founil,in the most 

 lertile soil or in the most efficacious manure. 



According to our ])resent knowledge of the ef- 

 fect of the constituent p uts of manure, I feel 

 convinced that it is inilili'ereiit to the plants from 

 which source they are derived. 'J'he dissolved 

 apatite (phosphate of lime) from S|)ain, the pot- 

 ash derived Iron) the felspar, the ammonia from 

 the gas works, must exercise the s.iiiie effects on 

 vegetable life as the bone earth, the potash, or 

 the ammonia, vvhi<;li we provide in manure. 



We live in a time when this conclusion is to 

 ho subjected to a comprehensive and accurnta 

 trial, and if the result corresponds with the e,K- 

 [lectations which we are entitled to make, if the 

 animal excrements can he re-placed by their 

 efficacious elements, a new era of agriculture 

 must begin. 



I invite the enlightened farmers of England to 

 unite with me for that purpose, and to lend me 

 their aid. Whatever may be the result of these 

 experiments, it is necessary for the fiiture pros- 

 perity of agriculture that they be made. They 

 will enrich us with a number of valuable facts — 

 we shall ascertain where we have wasted effica- 

 eious matters in the common course of farming 

 — we shall acquire an exact knowlcdg^e of those 

 substances which are necessary, and of those 

 which are dispensable. 



For a number of years myself and many young 

 talented cheiriisis have been occupied with the 

 analyses of those mineral substances, which are 

 constituent elements of our plants of culture, 

 and with the examination of the excrements of 

 man and animals, as well as of a great number of 

 soils acknowledged as fertile. These labors 

 have been laid before the scientific world long 

 since, but only a very confined application has 

 been made of them in a'gricultun;. 



The farmer is by his position not in the con- 

 dition to procure and to command the efficacious 

 elements necessary for the restoration and in- 

 crease of the fertility of his fields in a right pro- 

 portion and suitable form. For this purpose, 

 science and industry must combine their aid. 



I have been fortunate to remove the difficul- 

 ties which are opposed to the application of Ji 

 mere mixture of the elements of manure. If 

 we enqdoy the different elements of manure ex- 

 actly in those proportions in which they are ne- 

 cessary according to experience, for a rich crop 

 of wheat, peas, turnips, jiotatoes, and if, at the 

 same time, we leave them in their common state, 

 they do not produce that eff"ect which we might 

 have expected ; the cause of this is, that the dif- 

 ferent elements of manure possess a very une- 

 qual solubility, the ammonia evaporates, the so- 

 luble elements are carried off" by the rain, and 

 the effi;ct is more in proportion with the amount 

 of those ingredients of the manure which are 

 less soluble. 



1 have found means to give to every soluble 

 ingredient of manure, by its combination with 

 others any degree of solubility, without altering 

 its effect on vegetation. I give, for instance, the 

 alkalies in such a state as not to be more soluble 

 than gypsum,* which as is well known, acts 

 tlirough many years, as long as a particle of it 

 remains on the acre. 



The nfixture of the manure has been adapted 

 to the mean quantity of rain in this country; the 

 manure which is used in summer has a greater 

 degree of solubility than that used in winter. — 

 Ex|)erience must lead to further result.s, and in 

 future the fiirmer will he able to calculate the 

 amount of produce of his fields, if temperature, 

 want of rain, etc., do not oppose its coming fairly 

 into action. 



I must, however, observe that the artificial ma- 

 nures in no way alter the mechanical condition 



^ Equ:ii parts of carbonate of potash and carbonate of 

 lime, (chalk) melted together will diEsnlve in 4G0 parts 

 of water. Increase of chalk lessens, while a larger pro- 

 porhon of the other ingredient increases the solubility. 



E. N. H. 



