192 Agricultural Geology of Onondaga County. [April, 



Table 2, showing the quantity of rain which fell during the 

 years designated below, from 1826 to 1835. 



General average for Onondaga, - - 30.72 



General average for Pompey, - - 31.36 



The same years for Albany, - - - 39.91 



The same years for Utica, - - - 40.11 



The determination of the quantity of rain which falls at any 

 place, is essential to those who intend to employ Liebig's patent 

 manure, an account of which has been given in many of the 

 agricultural journals. The base of the manure is a silicate of 

 an alkali, whose solubility depends upon the amount of silex 

 which enters into the combination, and this amount is adjusted to 

 the quantity of rain which annually falls at the place; if this 

 amount is small, its solubility is increased by an increased quantity 

 of potash or other alkali; if it is comparatively great the silex is 

 increased. We have our doubts, however, in the practicability of 

 the proposed scheme, and w€ have been satisfied for a long time 

 that barn yard manures and composts of peat, ashes, lime and 

 magnesia are far the best manures which farmers in general can 

 employ. We do not take into view here what horticulturists, or 

 farmers located in the immediate neighborhood of large towns, 

 can do, where there is an immense quantity of refuse matters 

 which are produced from the various pursuits of life. But in the 

 interior and middle counties of New York, where there are so 

 many sources of the raw material for making manure, and so 

 cheaply too, it cannot be expected that expensive manufactured 

 manures can be profitably employed. 



We have now lengthened out this article farther than we ori- 

 ginally intended, and we ask for it considerable indulgence, for 

 notwithstanding its gi-eat length much remains to be said to make 

 it complete, and to adapt it to the particular locations it is de- 



