1847.] ^Agricultural Chemistry. 151 



have been experiments, too, which indicate such a composition. 

 Connected too as decaying vegetables are with the nitrogen of the 

 atmosphere, and tending to unite as nascent gas is with that al- 

 ready existing, here may be another means of the production of 

 ammonia. But, aside from this source, where is the proof found, 

 that in the decay of vegetable matter, its nitrogen escapes as a 

 gas into the atmosphere ? 



17. If ammonia is thus formed by a natural process, does that 

 process fail when the matter is used as a manure? But, if am- 

 monia, or even nitrogen, is evolved by manures, they become the 

 food of plants, by being formed in the very place to be taken up 

 by their roots and conveyed throughout their structure. 



18. It is almost necessary, indeed, that the nitrogenized vege- 

 table substances, composed of the same elements and placed in the 

 same circumstances for decomposition as the animal, should be 

 changed to the same simple or compound bodies. Thus, the de- 

 cay of those substances which contain no nitrogen, would yield 

 carbonic acid, and those which do contain it, would form am- 

 monia. 



19. On this view of the subject, the adaptation of the king- 

 doms of nature to each other, is only more admirable. And, it 

 animal matter is decided to be the only reproductive source of am- 

 monia, this adaptation rises in splendor and beneficence. But, in 

 either case, the use of manures is obvious, as they afford one con- 

 siderable means of nutrition to plants. 



20. In the fall of leaves and the decay of vegetable matter in 

 a forest, we find the natural process by which plants receive 

 through their roots one portion of their food, being the process of 

 nature to convey manure, and thus nutriment, to her own pro- 

 ductions. 



21. Liebig asserts, p. 90, that ammonia is " a product of the 

 decay and putrefaction of preceding generations of animals and 

 vegetables." Why should this product fail, when manures are 

 the subject? 



In addition to these reasons, consider facts. 



22. If the manure is left uncovered on the surface of the earth, 

 the farmer derives little benefit from it to his crop. 



23. To make a crop of clover valuable to his cultivated grain, 

 the clover is plowed in, and thus covered by the earth. 



24. When, in the same soil, the manure in one place is scattered 

 on the surface, in another buried in the earth, and in another 

 placed so that the corn shall send its roots into it, the difference in 

 the product is too palpable to doubt that the last is not the most 

 beneficial. The reason is, that the plants have access to another 

 source of food than that of the atmosphere. 



25. The sreater benefit derived from the use of animal manure. 



