1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



61 



them through their leaves, by the atmosphere, and 

 not the earth, which does nothing more than retain 

 the nutritious water naturally prepared for, and 

 imbibed by the spongioles of the roots of plants. 

 This hypothesis explains satisfactorily, at least to 

 myself, the chief advantage of tillage, which is, 

 that by loosening and pulverizing the earth, the 

 rains and the dews are more intimately mixed 

 with its particles, and therefore longer retained. 

 The other and only advantage is, that none but 

 the plants designed to be cultivated, will receive 

 and share among them, the whole of the food des- 

 tined for their use. 



W. B. has quoted one of Sir Humphrey Davy's 

 opinions, I presume, because he deems it opposed 

 to the hypothesis suggested by myself. If my 

 presumption be right, the quotation furnishes as 

 strong an instance as any 1 have seen lately, to 

 prove how marvellously men may differ about the 

 meaning of words and sentences; for / understand 

 this extract from Sir. H. Davy's Agricultural 

 Chemistry, (so far as it goes,) as sustaining, rather 

 than refuting my own notions. He here asserts 

 the superiority of manure applied in a compara- 

 tively fresh stale, to that which has undergone 

 much fermentation; so do I assert it. In what 

 then do I differ from him? Simply in believing 

 that the surface application is better than plough- 

 ing it under. But this difference is more appa- 

 rent than real; for one of his reasons in favor 

 of ploughing under the manure is, that, "the fluid 

 matter produced is applied instantly, even while it 

 is warm, to the organs of the plant." Now this 

 can apply only to the case of plants growing at 

 the time of the application; but in nearly all the 

 cases which I have supposed, there would be no 

 plants intended for our use growing in the earth, 

 instantly to receive this premature supply of food. 

 Again; Sir H. Davy's alleged reason for speedily 

 ploughing manure under, is, that its fermen- 

 tation above ground would be prevented. So 

 it would be upon my supposition, at least all 

 but that fermentation which it undergoes while 

 losing the natural heat acquired in the bodies 

 of the animals that produce it, and this heat 

 it must lose during either process. By being spread 

 on the surface, as in the case of summercow-pens, 

 or by carting it out as soon as practicable, without 

 heaping, no other fermentation takes place, but 

 that which is unavoidable. But in the other mode, 

 which is to collect and preserve it in heaps, for a 

 considerable time, great additional heat must be 

 generated and continued long enough for the es- 

 cape of gaseous exhalations to a great and incalcu- 

 lable amount. 



The "medical maxim" — "assist nature," which 

 W. B. has suggested, will not, in my humble 

 judgement, assist his argument much: for if the 

 want of skill in applying it be as great among the 

 land-doctors, (and it certainly is so,) as it but too 

 often proves to be in the human-body-doctors, the 

 poor old dame, had she the gift of speech, would 

 not unfrequently have to cry out — "non tali aux- 

 ilio — egeo" — I need no such aid. Fortunately 

 however, in many such cases, if they be not too 

 desperate, her "vis medicatrix 1 ,' or recuperative 

 power comes in and saves her from destruction. 

 By the way, this business of assisting nature is a 



{iretty bold, not to say presumptuous undertaking, 

 et who will attempt it. In the case of an agri- 

 culturist, he should be, (if you will pardon a pun,) 



very sure of his ground, or, he may do much more 

 harm than good: and should he go to acting upon 

 the supposed analogy between his and the medical 

 profession, he may often commit very fatal blun- 

 ders. For example: "depletion'''' by two or three 

 different modes, is quite a favorite dogma with the 

 faculty, whereas, our mother earth is almost al- 

 ways much more in want of food than physic. 

 Again; medical gentlemen deem themselves 

 bound to invent and apply remedies for all the va- 

 rious diseases and "ills that flesh is heir to;" and 

 as these appear to be innumerable, so, nearly 

 must be the nostrums for their cure. Now the 

 only names of human diseases that can, by any 

 sort of imaginary analogy, be applied to the earth, 

 are, the gravel and the consumption. The first is 

 nature's own creation, and past all remedy — so far 

 as it impedes vegetation, while the latter is super- 

 induced by the ingratitude of man himself, who, 

 if he had any sense of retributive justice, would 

 most assiduously attempt its cure the moment he 

 discovered any of the premonitory symptoms. 



VV. B.says, "we might with the same propriety 

 scatter our seeds to the winds, and depend upon the 

 earth, the air, and the rains, to cover, sustain, and 

 mature them,'"' as "to expose manure on the sar- 

 face:" and so ice might, if nature's God had not 

 commanded that man should both sow and till the 

 earth, that it may produce the food necessary for 

 his subsistence, which was produced spontaneous- 

 ly before his fall from his primitive state. Let it 

 be borne in mind however, that in all uninhabited 

 countries, as far as we know any thing about 

 them, every plant or tree which is propagated by 

 seed of any kind, that grows above ground, depos- 

 itesthem on the surface, where the only covering 

 they get is formed by the falling leaves or rains; 

 but this always proves amply sufficient to continue 

 all their orders, classes, genera, and species, as 

 long as time shall last. I do not mention this as a 

 reason why we should not bury at some depth in 

 the earth, all the seeds we plant, for all men 

 deem this essential: but merely to callW. B's. at- 

 tention to the fact, that both plants and trees are 

 abundantly perpetuated in every part of the world 

 of which they are natives, without any such in- 

 humation of their seed, as he seems to think in- 

 dispensable. One obvious reason why we bury 

 them, W. B. appears to have overlooked; it is, 

 that by so doing we can much better bestow on 

 them that cultivation which is designed to prevent 

 any thing else from growing where they do, that 

 they alone, (as I before remarked,) may imbibe 

 the food intended for them. 



The inference which he draws from this univer- 

 sal practice of covering seed in the earth being 

 deemed necessary, is, that covering manure is also 

 necessary. But surely this is a non sequitur, un- 

 less he had proved, that the food of plants con- 

 tained in manure, could not be imparted to them 

 in any other way. The woody portion of putres- 

 cent manures, if left on the surface of the earth, 

 unquestionably requires a longer time to decay 

 than when it is buried below the suriace; but in 

 either situation it ivill decay. Not until then, 

 can water so act upon it as to dissolve such parts 

 of it as are capable of conversion into the food of 

 plants. The only inquiry, therefore, relevant to 

 the case is, when is it best that this solution should 

 take place — some time before the plants to be ben- 

 efited by it are even so much as planted, (which 



