84 GEINE IN POOR SOIL. 



question, how far it is essential to plants. The fact that the 

 most barren soil contains these elements in vast quantity, 

 that exhausted land is nearly equally rich in these, as is the 

 highly-productive, has been overlooked. The amount of 

 nitrogen in geine, even in exhausted soil, is sufficient to sup- 

 ply that element to several crops of grain. The amount of 

 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, in a poor, sandy, 

 barren soil, has been proved, by chemical analysis, to be 

 not less than thirty -four tons per acre, taking the soil at only 

 a foot in depth. If the light of modern chemistry shall 

 hereafter teach that these are never taken from the geine of 

 soil, it will teach also what the true action of geine is. If 

 no approach to the solution of this important question has 

 yet been made, still, the absolute necessity of geine in soil is 

 admitted by all practical men. 



Some further attempt to explain this subject will be made 

 in the next chapter, and the following appendix may be 

 omitted by those to whom practical results are of more 

 value than philosophy. It is hoped, however, that the new 

 and important analyses, contained in this appendix, will 

 amply repay the labor of studying their results, for the first 

 time laid before the American farmer, in the second edition 

 of this work. 



